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DANIEL BOONE. 



From the portrait by Chester Harding made in 1819, when Boone 
was eighty-five years old. (See pp. 237-239.) 



Bamel Boone 



BY 
REUBEN GOLD THWAITES 

Author of "Father Marquette," "The Colonies, 1492- 

1750," " Down Historic Waterways," "Afloat on the 

Ohio," etc.; Editor of "The Jesuit Relations and 

Allied Documents," " Chronicles of Border 

Warfare," "Wisconsin Historical 

Collections," etc. 



Illustrated 




New York 

2E>. appicton & Companp 
1902 




\kE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Reokived 

AUG. IS 1902 

-Copyright wmrv 

Cl.ASS eu XXa No. 

COPY B. 



Copyright, 1902 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 






Published September, 1902 



1 






TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE 

LYMAN COPELAKD DEAPEE, LL.D. 

WHOSE UNPARALLELED COLLECTION OF 
MANUSCRIPT MATERIALS FOR WESTERN 
HISTORY IN THE LIBRARY OF THE 
WISCONSIN STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

HAS MADE PRACTICABLE THE 
PREPARATION OF THIS LITTLE BOOK 



PREFACE 



Poets, historians, and orators have for 
a hundred years sung the praises of Daniel 
Boone as the typical backwoodsman of the 
trans-Alleghany region. Despite popular 
belief, he was not really the founder of Ken- 
tucky. Other explorers and hunters had 
been there long before him; he himself was 
piloted through Cumberland Gap by John 
Finley ; and his was not even the first perma- 
nent settlement in Kentucky, for Harrods- 
burg preceded it by nearly a year ; his serv- 
ices in defense of the West, during nearly a 
half century of border warfare, were not 
comparable to those of George Eogers Clark 
or Benjamin Logan; as a commonwealth 
builder he was surpassed by several. Nev- 
ertheless, Boone's picturesque career pos- 
sesses a romantic and even pathetic interest 
that can never fail to charm the student of 
history. He was great as a hunter, explorer, 
vii 



Daniel Boone 

surveyor, and land-pilot — probably lie found 
few equals as a rifleman; no man on the 
border knew Indians more thoroughly or 
fought them more skilfully than he ; his life 
was filled to the brim with perilous adven- 
tures. He was not a man of affairs, he did 
not understand the art of money-getting, and 
he lost his lands because, although a sur- 
veyor, he was careless of legal forms of en- 
try. He fled before the advance of the civili- 
zation which he had ushered in: from Penn- 
sylvania, wandering with his parents to 
North Carolina in search of broader lands; 
thence into Kentucky because the Carolina 
borders were crowded ; then to the Kanawha 
Valley, for the reason that Kentucky was 
being settled too fast to suit his fancy ; lastly 
to far-off Missouri, in order, as he said, to 
get " elbow room." Experiences similar to 
his have made misanthropes of many an- 
other man — like Clark, for instance; but the 
temperament of this honest, silent, nature- 
loving man only mellowed with age; his 
closing years were radiant with the sunshine 
of serene content and the dimly appreciated 
consciousness of world-wide fame; and he 
viii 



Preface 

died full of years, in heart a simple hunter 
to the last — although he had also served with 
credit as magistrate, soldier, and legislator. 
At his death the Constitutional Convention 
of Missouri went into mourning for twenty 
days, and the State of Kentucky claimed his 
bones, and has erected over them a suitable 
monument. 

There have been published many lives of 
Boone, but none of them in recent years. 
Had the late Dr. Lyman Copeland Draper, of 
.Wisconsin, ever written the huge biography 
for which he gathered materials throughout 
a lifetime of laborious collection, those vol- 
umes — there were to be several — would 
doubtless have uttered the last possible word 
concerning the famous Kentucky pioneer. 
Draper's manuscript, however, never ad- 
vanced beyond a few chapters; but the raw 
materials which he gathered for this work, 
and for many others of like character, are 
now in the library of the Wisconsin State 
Historical Society, available to all scholars. 
From this almost inexhaustible treasure- 
house the present writer has obtained the 
bulk of his information, and has had the ad- 

ix 



Daniel Boone 

vantage of being able to consult numerous 
critical notes made by bis dear and learned 
friend. A book so small as this, concerning a 
character every phase of whose career was 
replete with thrilling incident, would doubt- 
less not have won the approbation of Dr. 
Draper, whose unaccomplished biographical 
plans were all drawn upon a large scale; 
but we are living in a busy age, and life is 
brief — condensation is the necessary order 
of the day. It will always be a source of re- 
gret that Draper's projected literary monu- 
ment to Boone was not completed for the 
press, although its bulk would have been for- 
bidding to any but specialists, who would 
have sought its pages as a cyclopedia of 
^Western border history. 

Through the courtesy both of Colonel 
Eeuben T. Durrett, of Louisville, President 
of the Filson Club, and of Mrs. Ranck, we 
are permitted to include among our illustra- 
tions reproductions of some of the plates in 
the late George W. Ranck's stately mono- 
graph upon Boonesborough. Aid in tracing 
original portraits of Boone has been received 
from Mrs. Jennie C. Morton and General 



Preface 

Fayette Hewitt, of Frankfort; Miss Marjory 
Dawson and Mr. W. G. Lackey, of St. Louis ; 
Mr. William H. King, of Winnetka, 111. ; and 
Mr. J. Marx Etting, of Philadelphia. 

E. G. T. 

Madison, Wis., 1902. 



XI 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTE 


B 






PAGE 




Preface vii 


I. 


Ancestry and Training . 






1 


II. 


The Nimrod of the Yadkin 






13 


III. 


Life on the Border . 






24 


IV. 


Red Man against White Man. 






35 


V. 


Kentucky Reached at Last . 






55 


VI. 


Alone in the Wilderness 






71 


VII. 
VIII. 


Predecessors and Contemporaries 
The Hero of Clinch Valley . 






85 
97 


IX. 


The Settlement of Kentucky . 






113 


X. 


Two Years of Darkness . 






129 


XI. 


The Siege of Boonesborough . 






146 


XII. 


Soldier and Statesman . 






. 169 


XIII. 


Kentucky's Path of Thorns . 






192 


XIV. 


In the Kanawha Valley . 






211 


XV. 


A Serene Old Age . 

Index 






. 223 
, 243 



Xlll 



LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS 



FACING 

PAGE 



Portrait of Daniel Boone . . . Frontispiece 

Boone's powder-horn and bake-kettle .... 30 

A Boone tree, 1760 56 

A survey note by Boone 120 

Fort Boonesborough 136 

Climax of the treaty 162 

Site of Boonesborough to-day 174 

Boone's cabin in St. Charles County, Missouri . . 224 

Nathan Boone's house in St. Charles County, Missouri . 230 

Boone's religious views (two pages) .... 234 

Boone's monument at Frankfort, Ky 240 



XV 



DANIEL BOONE 



CHAPTER I 

ANCESTRY AND TRAINING 

The grandfather of Daniel Boone — 
George by name — was born in 1666 at the 
peaceful little hamlet of Stoak, near the city 
of Exeter, in Devonshire, England. His 
father had been a blacksmith; but he him- 
self acquired the weaver's art. In due time 
George married Mary Maugridge, a young 
woman three years his junior, and native of 
the neighboring village of Bradninch, whither 
he had gone to follow his trade. This worthy 
couple, professed Quakers, became the par- 
ents of nine children, all born in Bradninch 
— George, Sarah, Squire,* Mary, John, Jo- 
seph, Benjamin, James, and Samuel. All of 

* Not an abbreviation of "csqnire," as has been supposed, 
but given because of some old family connection. This name 
was transmitted through several generations of Boones. 
2 1 



Daniel Boone 

these, except John, married, and left numer- 
ous descendants in America. 

The elder Boones were ambitious for the 
welfare of their large family. They were 
also fretful under the bitter intolerance 
encountered by Quakers in those unrestful 
times. As the children grew to maturity, 
the enterprising weaver sought information 
regarding the colony which his coreligionist 
.William Penn had, some thirty years pre- 
vious, established in America, where were 
promised cheap lands, religious freedom, 
political equality, and exact justice to all 
men. There were then no immigration bu- 
reaus to encourage and instruct those who 
proposed settling in America ; no news-letters 
from traveling correspondents, to tell the 
people at home about the Western world ; or 
books or pamphlets illustrating the country. 
The only method which occurred to George 
Boone, of Bradninch, by which he could sat- 
isfy himself regarding the possibilities of 
Pennsylvania as a future home for his house- 
hold, was to send out some of his older chil- 
dren as prospectors. 

Accordingly — somewhere about 1712-14, 
2 



Ancestry and Training 

family tradition says — young George (aged 
from twenty- two to twenty-four years), Sa- 
rah (a year and a half younger), and Squire 
(born November 25, 1696) were despatched 
to the promised land, and spent several 
months in its inspection. Leaving Sarah 
and Squire in Pennsylvania, George re- 
turned to his parents with a favorable re- 
port. 

On the seventeenth of August, 1717, the 
Boones, parents and children, bade a sorrow- 
ful but brave farewell to their relatives and 
friends in old Bradninch, whom they were 
never again to see. After journeying some 
eighty miles over rugged country to the port 
of Bristol, they there entered a sailing vessel 
bound for Philadelphia, where they safely ar- 
rived upon the tenth of October. 

Philadelphia was then but a village. Laid 
out like a checker-board, with architecture of 
severe simplicity, its best residences were 
surrounded by gardens and orchards. The 
town was substantial, neat, and had the ap- 
pearance of prosperity ; but the frontier was 
not far away — beyond outlying fields the un- 
tamed forest closed in upon the little capital. 

3 



Daniel Boone 

The fur trade flourished but two or three 
days' journey into the forest, and Indians 
were frequently seen upon the streets. 
When, therefore, the Boones decided to set- 
tle in what is now Abingdon, twelve or four- 
teen miles north of the town, in a sparse 
neighborhood of Quaker farmers, they at 
once became backwoodsmen, such as they re- 
mained for the rest of their lives. 

They were, however, not long in Abing- 
don. Soon after, we find them domiciled a 
few miles to the northwest in the little fron- 
tier hamlet of North Wales, in Gwynedd 
township; this was a Welsh community 
whose members had, a few years before, 
turned Quakers. 

Sarah Boone appears, about this time, to 
have married one Jacob Stover, a German 
who settled in Oley township, now in Berks 
County. The elder George Boone, now that 
he had become accustomed to moving, after 
his long, quiet years as a Devonshire weaver, 
appears to have made small ado over folding 
his family tent and seeking other pastures. 
In 1718 he took out a warrant for four hun- 
dred acres of land in Oley, and near the close 

4 



Ancestry and Training 

of the following year removed to his daugh- 
ter's neighborhood. This time he settled in 
earnest, for here in Oley — or rather the later 
subdivision thereof called Exeter — he spent 
the remainder of his days, dying in his orig- 
inal log cabin there, in 1744, at the age of 
seventy-eight. He left eight children, fifty- 
two grandchildren, and ten great-grandchil- 
dren — in all, seventy descendants: Devon- 
shire men, Germans, Welsh, and Scotch-Irish 
amalgamated into a sturdy race of American 
pioneers. 

Among the early Welsh Quakers in the 
rustic neighborhood of North Wales were the 
Morgans. On the twenty-third of July, 1720, 
at the Gwynedd meeting-house, in accordance 
with the Quaker ceremony, Squire Boone 
married Sarah Morgan, daughter of John. 
A descendant tells us that at this time 
" Squire Boone was a man of rather small 
stature, fair complexion, red hair, and gray 
eyes ; while his wife was a woman something 
over the common size, strong and active, with 
black hair and eyes, and raised in the Quaker 
order." 

For ten or eleven years Squire and Sarah 
5 



Daniel Boone 

Boone lived in Gwynedd township, probably 
on rented land, the former adding to their 
small income by occasional jobs of weaving, 
for he had learned his father's trade. They 
were thrifty folk, but it took ten years under 
these primitive conditions to accumulate even 
the small sum sufficient to acquire a farm of 
their own. Toward the close of the year 
1730, Squire obtained for a modest price a 
grant of 250 acres of land situated in his 
father's township, Oley — a level tract adapt- 
ed to grazing purposes, on Owatin Creek, 
some eight miles southeast of the present 
city of Reading, and a mile and a half from 
Exeter meeting-house. Here, probably early 
in 1731, the Boones removed with their four 
children. Relatives and Quaker neighbors 
assisted, after the manner of the frontier, in 
erecting a log cabin for the new-comers and 
in clearing and fencing for them a small 
patch of ground. 

In this rude backwoods home, in the val- 
ley of the Schuylkill, was born, upon the sec- 
ond of November (new style), 1734, Daniel 
Boone, fourth son and sixth child of Squire 
and Sarah. It is thought that the name 

6 



Ancestry and Training 

Daniel was suggested by that of Daniel 
Boone, a well-known Dutch painter who 
had died in London in 1698, "and who 
may have been known, or distantly related, 
to the family." The other children were: 
Sarah (born in 1724), Israel (1726), Samuel 
(1728), Jonathan (1730), Elizabeth (1732), 
Mary (1736), George (1739), Edward (1744), 
Squire, and Hannah, all of them natives of 
Oley.* 

Born into a frontier community, Daniel 
Boone's entire life was spent amid similar 
surroundings, varying only in degree. With 
the sight of Indians he was from the first 
familiar. They frequently visited Oley and 
Exeter, and were cordially received by the 
Quakers. George Boone's house was the 
scene of many a friendly gathering of the 
tribesmen. When Daniel was eight years of 
age, the celebrated Moravian missionary, 
Count Zinzendorf, held a synod in a barn at 
Oley, a party of converted Delaware Indians, 
who preached in favor of Christianity, being 

* Edward was killed by Indians when thirty-six years old, 
and Squire died at the age of seventy-six. Their brothers and 
sisters lived to ages varying from eighty-three to ninety-one. 

7 



Daniel Boone 

the principal attractions at this meeting. 
Thus young Boone started in life with an ac- 
curate knowledge of the American savage, 
which served him well during his later years 
of adventurous exploration and settlement- 
building. 

Squire Boone appears soon to have be- 
come a leader in his community. His farm, 
to whose acres he from time to time added, 
was attended to as closely as was usual 
among the frontiersmen of his day; and at 
home the business of weaving was not neg- 
lected, for he kept in frequent employment 
five or six looms, making " homespun " 
cloths for his neighbors and the market. He 
had an excellent grazing range some five or 
six miles north of the homestead, and each 
season sent his stock thither, as was the cus- 
tom at that time. Mrs. Boone and Daniel ac- 
companied the cows, and from early spring 
until late in autumn lived in a rustic cabin, 
far from any other human beings. Hard by, 
over a cool spring, was a dairy-house, in 
which the stout-armed mother made and kept 
her butter and cheese ; while her favorite boy 
watched the herd as, led by their bell-car- 

8 



Ancestry and Training 

riers, they roamed at will through the woods, 
his duty at sunset being to drive them to the 
cabin for milking, and later to lock them for 
the night within the cow-pens, secure from 
wild animals or prowling cattle-thieves. 

While tending his cattle, a work involving 
abundant leisure, the young herdsman was 
also occupied in acquiring the arts of the for- 
est. For the first two or three years — his 
pastoral life having commenced at the tender 
age of ten — his only weapon was a slender, 
smoothly shaved sapling, with a small bunch 
of gnarled roots at the end, in throwing 
which he grew so expert as easily to kill 
birds and other small game. When reaching 
the dignity of a dozen years, his father 
bought him a rifle, with which he soon be- 
came an unerring marksman. But, although 
he henceforth provided wild meat enough for 
the family, his passion for hunting some- 
times led him to neglect the cattle, which 
were allowed to stray far from home and 
pass the night in the deep forest. 

Soon each summer of herding came to be 
succeeded by a winter's hunt. In this occu- 
pation the boy roved far and wide over the 

9 



Daniel Boone 

Neversink mountain-range to the north and 
west of Monocacy Valley, killing and curing 
game for the family, and taking the skins to 
Philadelphia, where he exchanged them for 
articles needed in the chase — long hunting- 
knives, and flints, lead, and powder for his 
gun. 

In those days the children of the frontier 
grew up with but slight store of such educa- 
tion as is obtainable from books. The open 
volume of nature, however, they carefully 
conned. The ways of the wilderness they 
knew full well — concerning the storms and 
floods, the trees and hills, the wild animals 
and the Indians, they were deeply learned; 
well they knew how to live alone in the forest, 
and to thrive happily although surrounded 
by a thousand lurking dangers. This quiet, 
mild-mannered, serious-faced Quaker youth, 
Daniel Boone, was an ardent lover of the 
wild woods and their inhabitants, which he 
knew as did Audubon and Thoreau; but of 
regular schooling he had none. When he 
was about fourteen years of age, his brother 
Samuel, nearly seven years his senior, mar- 
ried Sarah Day, an intelligent young Quaker- 
10 



Ancestry and Training 

ess who had more education than was cus- 
tomary in this neighborhood. Sarah taught 
Daniel the elements of " the three R's." To 
this knowledge he added somewhat by later 
self -teaching, so that as a man he could read 
understanding^, do rough surveying, keep 
notes of his work, and write a sensible al- 
though badly spelled letter — for our back- 
woods hero was, in truth, no scholar, al- 
though as well equipped in this direction as 
were most of his fellows. 

In time Squire Boone, a man of enter- 
prise and vigor, added blacksmithing to his 
list of occupations, and employed his young 
sons in this lusty work. Thus Daniel served, 
for a time, as a worker in iron as well as a 
hunter and herdsman; although it was no- 
ticed that his art was chiefly developed in 
the line of making and mending whatever 
pertained to traps and guns. He was a fear- 
less rider of his father's horses; quick, 
though bred a Quaker, to resent what he 
considered wrong treatment ; * true to his 

* Indeed, it is a matter of record that other members also 
of this stout-hearted Devonshire family were "sometimes 
rather too belligerent and self-willed," and had "occasion- 

11 



Daniel Boone 

young friends ; fond of long, solitary tramps 
through the dark forest, or of climbing hill- 
tops for bird's-eye views of the far-stretch- 
ing wilderness. Effective training this, for 
the typical pioneer of North America. 

ally to be dealt with by the meeting." Daniel's oldest sister, 
Sarah, married a man who was not a Quaker, and conse- 
quently she was "disowned" by the society. His oldest 
brother, Israel, also married a worldling and was similarly 
treated ; and their father, who countenanced Israel's disloyal 
act and would not retract his error, was in 1748 likewise ex- 
pelled. 



12 



CHAPTER II 

THE NIMROD OF THE YADKIN 

The lofty barrier of the Alleghany Moun- 
tains was of itself sufficient to prevent the 
pioneers of Pennsylvania from wandering 
far westward. Moreover, the Indians be- 
yond these hills were fiercer than those with 
whom the Quakers were familiar; their oc- 
casional raids to the eastward, through the 
mountain passes, won for them a reputation 
which did not incline the border farmers to 
cultivate their further acquaintance. To the 
southwest, however, there were few obstacles 
to the spread of settlement. For several 
hundred miles the Appalachians run in par- 
allel ranges from northeast to southwest — 
from Pennsylvania, through Virginia, West 
Virginia, the Carolinas, and east Tennessee, 
until at last they degenerate into scattered 
foot-hills upon the Georgia plain. Through 
the long, deep troughs between these ranges 
— notably in the famous Valley of Virginia 
13 



Daniel Boone 

between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies 
— Pennsylvanians freely wandered into the 
south and southwest, whenever possessed by 
thirst for new and broader lands. Hostile 
Indians sometimes penetrated these great 
valleys and brought misery in their train; 
but the work of pioneering along this path 
was less arduous than had the western moun- 
tains been scaled at a time when the colonists 
were still few and weak. 

Between the years 1732 and 1750, numer- 
ous groups of Pennsylvanians — Germans 
and Irish largely, with many Quakers among 
them — had been wending their way through 
the mountain troughs, and gradually pushing 
forward the line of settlement, until now it 
had reached the upper waters of the Yadkin 
River, in the northwest corner of North 
Carolina. Trials abundant fell to their lot; 
but the soil of the valleys was unusually fer- 
tile, game was abundant, the climate mild, 
the country beautiful, and life in general upon 
the new frontier, although rough, such as to 
appeal to the borderers as a thing desirable. 
The glowing reports of each new group at- 
tracted others. Thus was the wilderness 
14 



The Nimrod of the Yadkin 

tamed by a steady stream of immigration 
from the older lands of the northern colo- 
nies, while not a few penetrated to this Ar- 
cadia through the passes of the Blue Ridge, 
from eastern Virginia and the Carolinas. 

Squire and Sarah Boone, of Oley, now 
possessed eleven children, some of whom 
were married and settled within this neigh- 
borhood which consisted so largely of the 
Boones and their relatives. The choicest 
lands of eastern Pennsylvania had at last 
been located. The outlook for the younger 
Boones, who soon would need new home- 
steads, did not appear encouraging. The 
fame of the Yadkin Valley, five hundred 
miles southwestward, had reached Oley, and 
thither, in the spring of 1750, the majority 
of the Boones, after selling their lands and 
surplus stock, bravely took up the line of 
march.* 

With the women and children stowed in 
canvas-covered wagons, the men and boys 
riding their horses at front and rear, and 
driving the lagging cattle, the picturesque 
little caravan slowly found its way to the 

* John and James remained, and lived and died in Oley. 
15 



Daniel Boone 

ford at Harper's Ferry, thence up the 
beautiful valley of the Shenandoah. By 
night they pitched their camps beside some 
gurgling spring, gathered the animals with- 
in the circle of the wagons, and, with sen- 
tinel posted against possible surprises by 
Indians, sat around the blazing fire to dis- 
cuss the experiences of the day — Daniel, 
as the hunter for the party, doubtless hav- 
ing the most interesting adventures of 
them all. 

Tradition has it that the Boones tarried 
by the way, for a year or more, on Linnville 
Creek, six miles north of Harrisonburg, in 
Rockingham County, Va. In any event, 
they appear to have resumed their journey 
by the autumn of 1751. Pushing on through 
the Valley of Virginia — an undulating, 
heavily forested table-land from three to 
ten miles in width — they forded the upper 
waters of numerous rivers, some of which, 
according to the tilt of the land, flow east- 
ward and southeastward toward the Atlantic, 
and others westward and southwestward 
toward the Ohio. This is one of the fairest 
and most salubrious regions in America ; but 
16 



The Nimrod of the Yadkin 

they did not again stop until the promised 
land of the Yadkin was reached. 

The country was before them, to choose 
from it practically what they would. Be- 
tween the Yadkin and the Catawba there was 
a broad expanse of elevated prairie, yielding 
a luxuriant growth of grass, while the bot- 
toms skirting the numerous streams were 
thick-grown to canebrake. Here were abun- 
dant meadows for the cattle, fish and game 
and wild fruits in quantity quite exceeding 
young Daniel's previous experience, a well- 
tempered climate, and to the westward a 
mountain-range which cast long afternoon 
shadows over the plain and spoke eloquently 
of untamed dominions beyond. Out of this 
land of plenty Squire Boone chose a claim at 
Buffalo Lick, where Dutchman's Creek joins 
with the North Fork of Yadkin. 

Daniel was now a lad of eighteen. Nom- 
inally, he helped in the working of his fa- 
ther's farm and in the family smithy; actu- 
ally, he was more often in the woods with 
his long rifle. At first, buffaloes were so 
plenty that a party of three or four men, 
with dogs, could kill from ten to twenty in 
3 17 



Daniel Boone 

a day ; but soon the sluggish animals receded 
before the advance of white men, hiding 
themselves behind the mountain wall. An 
ordinary hunter could slaughter four or five 
deer in a day ; in the autumn, he might from 
sunrise to sunset shoot enough bears to pro- 
vide over a ton of bear-bacon for winter use ; 
wild turkeys were easy prey ; beavers, otters, 
and muskrats abounded; while wolves, pan- 
thers, and wildcats overran the country. 
Overcome by his passion for the chase, our 
young Nimrod soon began to spend months 
at a time in the woods, especially in autumn 
and winter. He found also more profit in 
this occupation than at either the forge or 
the plow; for at their nearest market town, 
Salisbury, twenty miles away, good prices 
were paid for skins, which were regularly 
shipped thence to the towns upon the At- 
lantic coast. 

The Catawba Indians lived about sixty 
miles distant, and the Cherokees still farther. 
These tribesmen not infrequently visited the 
thinly scattered settlement on the Yadkin, 
seeking trade with the whites, with whom 
they were as yet on good terms. They were, 
18 



The Nimrod of the Yadkin 

however, now and then raided by Northern 
Indians, particularly the Shawnese, who, col- 
lecting in the Valley of Virginia, swept down 
npon them with fury; sometimes also com- 
mitting depredations upon the whites who 
had befriended their tribal enemies, and who 
unfortunately had staked their farms in the 
old-time war-path of the marauders. 

In the year 1754, the entire American 
border, from the Yadkin to the St. Lawrence, 
became deeply concerned in the Indian ques- 
tion. France and England had long been 
rivals for the mastery of the North American 
continent lying west of the Alleghanies. 
France had established a weak chain of posts 
upon the upper Great Lakes, and down the 
Mississippi River to New Orleans, thus con- 
necting Canada with Louisiana. In the Val- 
ley of the Ohio, however, without which the 
French could not long hold the Western 
country, there was a protracted rivalry be- 
tween French and English fur-traders, each 
seeking to supplant the intruding foreigner. 
This led to the outbreak of the French and 
Indian War, which was waged vigorously for 
five years, until New France fell, and the 
19 



Daniel Boone 

English obtained control of all Canada and 
that portion of the continent lying between 
the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi. 

As early as 1748, backwoodsmen from 
Pennsylvania had made a small settlement 
on New River, just west of the Alleghanies — 
a settlement which the Boones must have vis- 
ited, as it lay upon the road to the Yadkin; 
and in the same season several adventurous 
Virginians hunted and made land-claims in 
Kentucky and Tennessee. In the following 
year there was formed for Western fur trad- 
ing and colonizing purposes, the Ohio Com- 
pany, composed of wealthy Virginians, 
among them two brothers of George Wash- 
ington. In 1753 French soldiers built a little 
log fort on French Creek, a tributary of the 
Alleghany; and, despite Virginia's protest, 
delivered by young Major Washington, were 
planning to erect another at the forks of the 
Ohio, where Pittsburg now is. Thither 
Washington went, in the succeeding year, 
with a body of Virginia militiamen, to con- 
struct an English stockade at the forks ; but 
the French defeated him in the Great Mead- 
ows hard by and themselves erected the fort. 
20 



The Nimrod of the Yadkin 

It is thought by some writers that young 
Boone, then twenty years of age, served in 
the Pennsylvania militia which protected the 
frontier from the Indian forays which suc- 
ceeded this episode. A year later (1755) the 
inexperienced General Braddock, fresh from 
England, set out, with Washington upon his 
staff, to teach a lesson to these Frenchmen 
who had intruded upon land claimed by the 
colony of Virginia. 

In Braddock's little army were a hundred 
North Carolina frontiersmen, under Captain 
Hugh Waddell; their wagoner and black- 
smith was Daniel Boone. His was one of 
those heavily laden baggage-wagons which, 
history tells us, greatly impeded the progress 
of the English, and contributed not a little 
to the terrible disaster which overtook the 
column in the ravine of Turtle Creek, only 
a few miles from Pittsburg. The baggage- 
train was the center of a fierce attack from 
Indians, led by French officers, and many 
drivers were killed. Young Boone, however, 
cut the traces of his team, and mounting a 
horse, fortunately escaped by flight. Behind 
him the Indian allies of the French, now un- 
21 



Daniel Boone 

checked, laid waste the panic-stricken fron- 
tiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia. But the 
Yadkin, which Boone soon reached, was as 
yet unscarred; the Northern tribes were 
busied in the tide of intercolonial warfare, 
and the Catawbas and Cherokees thus far 
remained steadfast to their old-time prom- 
ises of peace. 

Daniel was now a man, full-grown. He 
had brought home with him not only some 
knowledge of what war meant, but his imag- 
ination had become heated by a new passion 
— the desire to explore as well as to hunt. 
"While upon the campaign he had fallen in 
with another adventurous soul, John Finley 
by name, who fired his heart with strange 
tales of lands and game to the west of the 
mountains. Finley was a Scotch-Irishman 
of roving tendencies, who had emigrated to 
Pennsylvania and joined a colony of his com- 
patriots. As early as 1752 he had become a 
fur-trader. In the course of his rambles 
many perilous adventures befell him in the 
Kentucky wilds, into which he had penetrat- 
ed as far as the Falls of the Ohio, where 
Louisville is now built. Hurrying, with 
22 



The Nimrod of the Yadkin 

other woodsmen, to Braddock's support, he 
enrolled himself under George Croghan, a fa- 
mous trader to the Indians. But the expert 
services of Croghan and his men, who, well 
understanding the methods of savages upon 
the war-path, offered to serve as scouts, were 
coldly rejected by Braddock, who soon had 
occasion to regret that he had not taken their 
advice. 

Finley found in the Yadkin wagoner a 
kindred spirit, and suggested to him with 
eagerness a method of reaching Kentucky by 
following the trail of the buffaloes and the 
Shawnese, northwestward through Cumber- 
land Gap. To reach this hunter's paradise, 
to which Finley had pointed the way, was 
now Boone's daily dream. 



23 



CHAPTER in 

LIFE ON THE BORDER 

It was many years before Daniel Boone 
realized his dream of reaching Kentucky. 
Such an expedition into the far-off wilder- 
ness could not he lightly undertaken; its 
hardships and dangers were innumerable; 
and the way thither from the forks of the 
Yadkin was not as easily found, through this 
perplexing tangle of valleys and mountains, 
as Finley had supposed. His own route had 
doubtless been over the Ohio Company's pass 
from the upper waters of the Potomac to a 
tributary of the Monongahela. 

Another reason caused Daniel long to 
linger near his home. A half-dozen years 
before the Boones reached the Yadkin coun- 
try there had located here a group of sev- 
eral related families, the Bryans, originally 
from Ireland. Pennsylvanians at first, they 
had, as neighbors crowded them, drifted 
southwestward into the Valley of Virginia; 
24 



Life on the Border 

and finally, keeping well ahead of other set- 
tlers, established themselves at the forks of 
the Yadkin. They took kindly to the Boones, 
the two groups intermarried, and both were 
in due course pioneers of Kentucky. Re- 
becca, the daughter of Joseph Bryan, was 
fifteen years of age when Daniel first read 
his fate in her shining black eyes. In the 
spring following his return from Braddock's 
slaughter-pen he led her to the altar, the 
ceremony being performed by old Squire 
Boone — farmer, weaver, blacksmith, and now 
justice of the peace for Rowan County. 

An historian of the border, who had stud- 
ied well the family traditions, thus describes 
Daniel and Rebecca at the time when they 
set forth together upon the journey of life: 
" Behold that young man, exhibiting such un- 
usual firmness and energy of character, five 
feet eight inches in height, with broad chest 
and shoulders, his form gradually tapering 
downward to his extremities; his hair mod- 
erately black; blue eyes arched with yellow- 
ish eyebrows; his lips thin, with a mouth 
peculiarly wide; a countenance fair and 
ruddy, with a nose a little bordering on the 
25 



Daniel Boone 

Roman order. Such was Daniel Boone, now 
past twenty-one, presenting altogether a no- 
ble, manly, prepossessing appearance. . . . 
Rebecca Bryan, whose brow had now been 
fanned by the breezes of seventeen summers, 
was, like Rebecca of old, 'very fair to look 
upon/ with jet-black hair and eyes, complex- 
ion rather dark, and something over the com- 
mon size of her sex; her whole demeanor 
expressive of her childlike artlessness, pleas- 
ing in her address, and unaffectedly kind in 
all her deportment. Never was there a more 
gentle, affectionate, forbearing creature than 
this same fair youthful bride of the Yadkin." 
In the annals of the frontier, as elsewhere, 
all brides are fair and grooms are manly; 
but, allowing for the natural enthusiasm of 
hero-worshipers, we may, from the abun- 
dance of testimony to that effect, at least con- 
clude that Daniel and Rebecca Boone were a 
well-favored couple, fit to rear a family of 
sturdy borderers. 

It was neither the day nor the place for 

expensive trousseaus and wedding journeys. 

After a hilarious wedding-feast, Boone and 

his wife, with scanty equipment, immediately 

26 



Life on the Border 

commenced their hard task of winning a live- 
lihood from the soil and the forest. At first 
occupying a rude log cabin in his father's 
yard, they soon afterward acquired some 
level land of their own, lying upon Sugar 
Tree, a tributary of Dutchman's Creek, in 
the Bryan settlement, a few miles north of 
Squire Boone's. All of this neighborhood 
lies within what is now Davie County, still 
one of the richest farming districts in North 
Carolina. Save when driven out by Indian 
alarms and forays, they here lived quietly 
for many years. 

The pioneers in the then back country, 
along the eastern foot-hills of the Allegha- 
nies, led a rough, primitive life, such as is 
hardly possible to-day, when there is no long- 
er any frontier within the United States, and 
but few districts are so isolated as to be more 
than two or three days' journey from a rail- 
way. Most of them, however, had been bred, 
as were the Boones and the Bryans, to the 
rude experiences of the border. With slight 
knowledge of books, they were accustomed 
to living in the simplest manner, and from 
childhood were inured to the hardships and 
27 



Daniel Boone 

privations incident to great distance from 
the centers of settlement ; they possessed the 
virtues of hospitality and neighborliness, and 
were hardy, rugged, honest-hearted folk, ad- 
mirably suited to their self-appointed task 
of forcing back the walls of savagery, in 
order that civilization might cover the land. 
We may well honor them for the great serv- 
ice that they rendered to mankind. 

The dress of a backwoodsman like Daniel 
Boone was a combination of Indian and civ- 
ilized attire. A long hunting-shirt, of coarse 
cloth or of dressed deerskins, sometimes with 
an ornamental collar, was his principal gar- 
ment; drawers and leggings of like material 
were worn; the feet were encased in moc- 
casins of deerskin — soft and pliant, but cold 
in winter, even when stuffed with deer's hair 
or dry leaves, and so spongy as to be no 
protection against wet feet, which made 
every hunter an early victim to rheumatism. 
Hanging from the belt, which girt the hunt- 
ing-shirt, were the powder-horn, bullet- 
pouch, scalping-knife, and tomahawk; while 
the breast of the shirt served as a generous 
pocket for food when the hunter or warrior 
28 



Life on the Border 

was upon the trail. For head-covering, the 
favorite was a soft cap of coonskin, with the 
bushy tail dangling behind; but Boone him- 
self despised this gear, and always wore a 
hat. The women wore huge sunbonnets and 
loose gowns of home-made cloth ; they gener- 
ally went barefoot in summer, but wore moc- 
casins in winter. 

Daniel Boone's cabin was a simple box of 
logs, reared in " cob-house " style, the chinks 
stuffed with moss and clay, with a door and 
perhaps but a single window. Probably there 
was but one room below, with a low attic 
under the rafters, reached by a ladder. A 
great outside chimney, built either of rough 
stones or of small logs, coated on the inside 
with clay mortar and carefully chinked with 
the same, was built against one end of this 
rude house. In the fireplace, large enough 
for logs five or six feet in length, there was 
a crane from which was hung the iron pot 
in which the young wife cooked simple meals 
of corn-mush, pumpkins, squashes, beans, 
potatoes, and pork, or wild meat of many 
kinds, fresh and dried; in a bake-kettle, laid 
upon the live coals, she made the bread and 
29 



Daniel Boone 

corn pone, or fried her steaks, which added 
variety to the fare. 

Dishes and other ntensils were few — some 
pewter plates, forks, and spoons; wooden 
bowls and trenchers, with gourds and hard- 
shelled squashes for drinking-mugs. For 
knife, Boone doubtless used his belt-weapon, 
and scorned the crock plates, now slowly 
creeping into the valley, as calculated to dull 
its edge. Over the fireplace deer's horns 
served as rests for his gun. Into the log 
wall were driven great wooden pegs, hanging 
from which flitches of dried and smoked 
bacon, venison, and bear's-meat mingled 
freely with the family's scanty wardrobe. 

With her cooking and rude mending, her 
moccasin-making, her distaff and loom for 
making cloths, her occasional plying of the 
hoe in the small vegetable patch, and her 
ever-present care of the children and dairy, 
Eebecca Boone was abundantly occupied. 

In these early years of married life Dan- 
iel proved a good husbandman, planting and 
garnering his crops with regularity, and pas- 
turing a few scrawny cattle and swine upon 
the wild lands adjoining his farm. Doubt- 
30 





BOONE'S POWDER-HORN AND BAKE-KETTLE. 

In possession of Wisconsin State Historical Society. The horn once 
belonged to Daniel's brother Israel, and bears the initials "I B". 



Life on the Border 

less at times lie did smithy-work for the 
neighbors and took a hand at the loom, as 
had his father and grandfather before him. 
Sometimes he was engaged with his wagon 
in the caravans which each autumn found 
their way from the Yadkin and the other 
mountain valleys down to the Atlantic 
cities, carrying furs to market; it was as 
yet too early in the history of the back 
country for the cattle-raisers to send their 
animals to the coast. In the Valley of Vir- 
ginia, hemmed in upon the east by the Blue 
Eidge, packhorses were alone used in this 
traffic, for the mountain paths were rough 
and narrow; but wagons could be utilized 
in the more southern districts. The cara- 
vans brought back to the pioneers salt, iron, 
cloths, and a few other manufactured goods. 
This annual expedition over, Boone was free 
to go upon long hunts in the forest, where 
he cured great stores of meat for his family 
and prepared the furs for market. 

The backwoodsmen of the Yadkin had 
few machines to assist them in their labor, 
and these were of the simplest sort. Prac- 
tically, every settler was his own mechanic — 
31 



Daniel Boone 

although some men became, in certain lines, 
more expert than their neighbors, and to 
them fell such work for the entire settlement. 
Grinding corn into meal, or cracking it into 
hominy, were, as usual with primitive peo- 
ples, tasks involving the most machinery. 
Kude mortars and pestles, some of the latter 
ingeniously worked by means of springy 
" sweeps," were commonly seen ; a device 
something like a nutmeg-grater was often 
used when the corn was soft; two circular 
millstones, worked by hand, were effective, 
and there were some operated by water- 
power. 

Medicine was at a crude stage, many of 
the so-called cures being as old as Egypt, 
while others were borrowed from the In- 
dians. The borderers firmly believed in the 
existence of witches ; bad dreams, eclipses of 
the sun, the howling of dogs, and the croak- 
ing of ravens, were sure to bring disasters 
in their train. 

Their sports laid stress on physical ac- 
complishments — great strength, dexterity 
with the rifle, hunting, imitating the calls of 
wild birds and beasts, throwing the toma- 
32 



Life on the Border 

hawk, running, jumping, wrestling, dancing, 
and horse-racing; they were also fond, as 
they gathered around one another's great 
fireplaces in the long winter evenings, of 
story-telling and dramatic recitation. Some 
of the wealthier members of this primitive 
society owned negro slaves, to whom, some- 
times, they were cruel, freely using the whip 
upon both women and men. Indeed, in their 
own frequent quarrels fierce brutality was 
sometimes used, adversaries in a fist-fight 
being occasionally maimed or otherwise dis- 
figured for life. 

There was, for a long time, " neither law 
nor gospel " upon this far-away frontier. 
Justices of the peace had small authority. 
Preachers were at first unknown. Many of 
the borderers were Presbyterians, and others 
Quakers; but under such social conditions 
these were little else than names. Never- 
theless, there was a sound public sentiment 
among these rude, isolated people, who were 
a law unto themselves. They respected and 
honored candor, honesty, hospitality, regular 
habits, and good behavior generally; and 
very severe were the punishments with which 
4 33 



Daniel Boone 

they visited offenders. If a man acted as 
a coward in time of war, shirked his full 
measure of duty to the public, failed to care 
for his family, was careless about his debts, 
stole from his neighbors, was needlessly pro- 
fane, or failed to treat women respectfully, 
he was either shunned by his fellows or 
forced to leave the settlement. 

Amid such surroundings and of such stuff 
was Daniel Boone in the days when he was 
living uneventfully in the valley of the Yad- 
kin as farmer, blacksmith, wagoner, and 
hunter, before the Indian wars and his ex- 
plorations west of the long-shadowed moun- 
tain-range made of him a popular hero. 



34 



CHAPTER IV 

BED MAN AGAINST WHITE MAN 

The borderers in the Valley of Virginia 
and on the western highlands of the Caro- 
linas were largely engaged in raising horses, 
cattle, sheep, and hogs, which grazed at will 
upon the broad slopes of the eastern foot- 
hills of the Alleghanies, most of them being 
in as wild a state as the great roving herds 
now to be seen upon the semi-arid plains 
of the far West. Indeed, there are some 
strong points of resemblance between the life 
of the frontier herdsman of the middle of the 
eighteenth century and that of the "cow" 
ranchers of our own day, although the most 
primitive conditions now existing would have 
seemed princely to Daniel Boone. The an- 
nual round-up, the branding of young stock, 
the sometimes deadly disputes between 
herdsmen, and the autumnal drive to mar- 
ket, are features in common. 

With the settlement of the valleys and the 
35 



Daniel Boone 

steady increase in the herds, it was neces- 
sary each season to find new pastures. Thus 
the herdsmen pushed farther and farther 
into the wilderness to the south and west, 
and actually crossed the mountains at many 
points. Even before the arrival of the 
Boones, the Bryans had frequently, toward 
the end of summer, as the lower pastures 
thinned, driven their stock to a distance of 
sixty and seventy miles to green valleys lying 
between the western buttresses of the moun- 
tain wall. 

This gradual pressure upon the hunting- 
grounds of the Cherokees and the Catawbas 
was not unnoticed by the tribesmen. There 
had long been heard deep mutterings, es- 
pecially by the former, who were well-dis- 
posed toward the ever-meddling French ; but 
until the year of Daniel Boone's wedding 
the southern frontiers had not known an In- 
dian uprising. 

The year previous (1755) the Cherokees 
had given reluctant permission to the whites 
to build two posts in their country for the 
protection of the frontiers against the 
French, who, with their Indian allies, were 
36 



Red Man Against White Man 

continually active against the New York, 
Pennsylvania, and Virginia frontiers, and 
were known to be attempting the corrup- 
tion of the Southern Indians. Fort Prince 
George was accordingly erected upon the Sa- 
vannah River, and Fort Loudon upon the 
Tennessee. In 1756 Fort Dobbs was con- 
structed a short distance south of the South 
Fork of the Yadkin. These three centers of 
refuge were upon the extreme southwestern 
borders of the English colonies. 

These " forts " of the American border 
would have proved slight defenses in the 
presence of an enemy armed with even the 
lightest artillery, but were generally suffi- 
cient to withstand a foe possessing only mus- 
kets and rifles. Fort Dobbs was an oblong 
space forty-three by fifty-three feet, girt by 
walls about twelve feet high, consisting of 
double rows of logs standing on end; earth 
dug from the ditch which surrounded the fort 
was piled against the feet of these palisades, 
inside and out, to steady them; they were 
fastened to one another by wooden pins, and 
their tops were sharpened so as to impede 
those who might seek to climb over. At the 
37 



Daniel Boone 

angles of the stockade were blockhouses 
three stories high, each story projecting 
about eighteen inches beyond the one be- 
neath; there were openings in the floors of 
the two upper stories to enable the defenders 
to fire down upon an enemy which sought 
to enter below. Along the inside of one, or 
perhaps two, of the four walls of the stockade 
was a range of cabins — or rather, one long 
cabin with log partitions — with the slope of 
the roof turned inward to the square; this 
furnished a platform for the garrison, who, 
protected by the rampart of pointed logs, 
could fire into the attacking party. Other 
platforms were bracketed against the walls 
not backed by cabins. There was a large 
double gate made of thick slabs and so situ- 
ated as to be guarded by the blockhouses on 
either corner; this was the main entrance, 
but another and smaller gate furnished a 
rear exit to and entrance from the spring 
hard by. Blockhouses, cabins, and walls 
were all amply provided with port-holes; 
Fort Dobbs had capacity for a hundred men- 
at-arms to fire at one volley. Destructive 
fusillades could be maintained from within, 
38 



Red Man Against White Man 

and everywhere the walls were bullet-proof; 
but good marksmen in the attacking force 
could work great havoc by firing through the 
port-holes, and thus quietly picking off those 
who chanced to be in range. Fortunately for 
the whites few Indians became so expert as 
this. 

Upon the arrival of breathless messengers 
bringing news of the approach of hostile In- 
dians, the men, women, and children of a 
wide district would flock into such a fort as 
this. " I well remember," says Dr. Dodd- 
ridge in his Notes on Virginia, " that when 
a little boy the family were sometimes waked 
up in the dead of night by an express with 
a report that the Indians were at hand. The 
express came softly to the door or back win- 
dow, and by gentle tapping waked the fam- 
ily ; this was easily done, as an habitual fear 
made us ever watchful and sensible to the 
slightest alarm. The whole family were in- 
stantly in motion: my father seized his gun 
and other implements of war ; my stepmoth- 
er waked up and dressed the children as well 
as she could ; and being myself the oldest of 
the children, I had to take my share of the 
39 



Daniel Boone 

burthens to be carried to the fort. There 
was no possibility of getting a horse in the 
night to aid us in removing to the fort; be- 
sides the little children, we caught up what 
articles of clothing and provisions we could 
get hold of in the dark, for we durst not 
light a candle or even stir the fire. All this 
was done with the utmost despatch and the 
silence of death ; the greatest care was taken 
not to awaken the youngest child ; to the rest 
it was enough to say Indian, and not a 
whimper was heard afterwards. Thus it 
often happened that the whole number of 
families belonging to a fort, who were in the 
evening at their homes, were all in their little 
fortress before the dawn of the next morn- 
ing. In the course of the succeeding day 
their household furniture was brought in by 
parties of the men under arms." 

The large public frontier forts, such as 
we have described, did not house all of the 
backwoodsmen. There were some who, 
either because of great distance or other 
reasons, erected their own private defenses; 
or, in many cases, several isolated families 
united in such a structure. Often these were 
40 



Red Man Against White Man 

but single blockhouses, with a few outlying 
cabins. It was difficult to induce some of 
the more venturesome folk to enter the forts 
unless Indians were actually in the settle- 
ment; they took great risks in order to care 
for their crops and stock until the last mo- 
ment; and, soon tiring of the monotony of 
life within the fort cabins, would often leave 
the refuge before the danger was really over. 
" Such families," reports Doddridge, " gave 
no small amount of trouble by creating fre- 
quent necessities of sending runners to warn 
them of their danger, and sometimes parties 
of our men to protect them during their re- 
moval." 

For the first few years Fort Dobbs was 
but little used. There was, however, much 
uneasiness. The year 1757 had, all along the 
line, been disastrous to English arms in the 
North, and the Cherokees became increas- 
ingly insolent. The next year they com- 
mitted several deadly assaults in the Valley 
of Virginia, but themselves suffered greatly 
in return. The French, at last driven from 
Fort Duquesne (Pittsburg), had retreated 
down the Ohio Kiver to Fort Massac, in 
41 



Daniel Boone 

southern Illinois, and sent their emissaries 
far and near to stir up the Indians west of 
the mountains. The following April (1759) 
the Yadkin and Catawba Valleys were raided 
by the Cherokees, with the usual results of 
ruined crops, burned farm-buildings, and 
murdered households; not a few of the bor- 
derers being carried off as prisoners into the 
Indian country, there generally to suffer 
either slavery or slow death from the most 
horrid forms of torture. The Catawbas, 
meanwhile, remained faithful to their white 
friends. 

Until this outbreak the Carolinas had 
prospered greatly. Hundreds of settlers 
had poured in from the more exposed north- 
ern valleys, and the western uplands were 
now rapidly being dotted over with clearings 
and log cabins. The Indian forays at once 
created a general panic throughout this re- 
gion, heretofore considered safe. Most of 
the Yadkin families, together with English 
fur-traders who hurried in from the woods, 
huddled within the walls either of Fort 
Dobbs or of small neighborhood forts hastily 
constructed ; but many others, in their fright, 
42 



Red Man Against White Man 

fled with all their possessions to settlements 
on or near the Atlantic coast. 

Among the latter were old Squire Boone 
and his wife, Daniel and Rebecca, with their 
two sons,* and several other families of 
Bryans and Boones, although some of both 
names preferred to remain at Fort Dobbs. 
The fugitives scattered to various parts of 
Virginia and Maryland — Squire going to 
Georgetown, now in the District of Columbia, 
where he lived for three years and then re- 
turned to the Yadkin; while Daniel's fam- 
ily went in their two-horse wagon to Cul- 
peper County, in eastern Virginia. The 
settlers there employed him with his wagon 
in hauling tobacco to Fredericksburg, the 
nearest market-town. 

The April forays created almost as much 
consternation at Charleston as on the Yad- 
kin. Governor Lyttleton, of South Carolina, 
sent out fifteen hundred men to overcome the 

* The children of Daniel Boone were as follows : James 
(born in 1757), Israel (1759), Susannah (1760), Jemima (1762), 
Lavinia (1766), Rebecca (1768), Daniel Morgan (1769), John B. 
(1773), and Nathan (1780). The four daughters all married and 
died in Kentucky. The two eldest sons were killed by Indians, 
the three younger emigrated to Missouri. 

43 



Daniel Boone 

Cherokees, who now pretended to be grieved 
at the acts of their young hot-bloods and 
patched up a peace. Fur-traders, eager to 
renew their profitable barter, hastened back 
into the western forests. But very soon their 
confidence was shattered, for the Indians 
again dug up the tomahawk. Their war-par- 
ties infested every road and trail; most of 
the traders, with trains of packhorses to 
carry their goods and furs, fell an easy prey 
to their forest customers ; and Forts Loudon, 
Dobbs, and Prince George were besieged. 
By January (1760) the entire southwest 
border was once more a scene of carnage. 

Captain Waddell, our old friend of Brad- 
dock's campaign, commanded at Fort Dobbs, 
with several Bryans and Boones in his little 
garrison. Here the Cherokees were repulsed 
with great loss. At Fort Prince George the 
country round about was sadly harried by 
the enemy, who finally withdrew. Fort 
Loudon, however, had one of the saddest ex- 
periences in the thrilling annals of the 
frontier. 

In April General Amherst, of the British 
Army, sent Colonel Montgomery against the 
44 



Red Man Against White Man 

jCherokees with a formidable column com- 
posed of twelve hundred regular troops — 
among them six hundred kilted Highlanders 
■ — to whom were attached seven hundred 
Carolina backwoods rangers under Waddell, 
with some Catawba allies. They laid waste 
with fire and sword all the Cherokee villages 
on the Keowee and Tennessee Rivers, includ- 
ing the growing crops and magazines of corn. 
The soldiers killed seventy Indians, captured 
forty prisoners, and reduced the greater part 
of the tribe to the verge of starvation. 

The Cherokees were good fighters, and 
soon had their revenge. On the morning of 
the twenty-seventh of June the army was 
proceeding along a rough road on the south- 
ern bank of the Little Tennessee, where on 
one side is a sheer descent to the stream, on 
the other a lofty cliff. Here it was ambus- 
caded by over six hundred savage warriors 
under the noted chief Silouee. In the course 
of an engagement lasting several hours the 
whites lost twenty killed and sixty wounded, 
and the Cherokee casualties were perhaps 
greater. Montgomery desperately beat his 
way to a level tract, but in the night hastily 
45 



Daniel Boone 

withdrew, and did not stop until he reached 
Charleston. Despite the entreaties of the 
Assembly, he at once retired to the North 
with his little army, and left the frontiers 
of Carolina open to the assaults of the merci- 
less foe. 

The siege of Fort Loudon was now pushed 
by the Cherokees with vigor. It had already 
withstood several desperate and protracted 
assaults. But the garrison contrived to exist 
for several months, almost wholly upon the 
active sympathy of several Indian women 
who were married to frontiersmen shut up 
within the walls. The dusky wives fre- 
quently contrived to smuggle food into the 
fort despite the protests of the Indian lead- 
ers. Women, however, despite popular no- 
tions to the contrary, have a powerful influ- 
ence in Indian camps; and they but laughed 
the chiefs to scorn, saying that they would 
suffer death rather than refuse assistance to 
their white husbands. 

This relief, however, furnished but a pre- 
carious existence. Keceiving no help from 
the settlements, which were cut off from com- 
munication with them, and weak from irregu- 
46 



Red Man Against White Man 

lar food, the garrison finally surrendered on 
promise of a safe-conduct to their fellows in 
the East. Early in the morning of August 
ninth they marched out — men, women, and 
children to the number of several hundred — 
leaving behind them their cannon, ammuni- 
tion, and spare arms. The next day, upon 
their sorry march, they were set upon by a 
bloodthirsty mob of seven hundred Chero- 
kees. Many were killed outright, others sur- 
rendered merely to meet torture and death. 
Finally, after several hours of horror, a 
friendly chief succeeded, by browbeating his 
people and by subterfuge, in saving the lives 
of about two hundred persons, who in due 
time and after great suffering, reached the 
relief party which had for several months 
been making its way thither from Virginia; 
but it had been delayed by storms and high 
water in the mountain streams, and was now 
seeking needed rest in a camp at the head 
of the Holston. It is recorded that during 
the heartrending melee several other Indians 
risked their lives for white friends, perform- 
ing deeds of heroism which deserve to be 
remembered. 

47 



Daniel Boone 

Although New France was now tottering 
to its fall, the French officers at Fort Massac 
still continued, with their limited resources, 
to keep alive the Cherokee war spirit. 
French outrages occurred throughout the au- 
tumn and early winter of 1760. At nearly 
all of the forts, large and small, skirmishes 
took place, some of these giving occasion for 
exhibitions of rare enterprise and courage 
on the part of the garrisons, women and men 
alike. 

During the winter, the governors of Vir- 
ginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina 
agreed upon a joint campaign against the 
hostiles. The southern column, comprising 
twenty-six hundred men, chiefly Highlanders, 
was under Lieutenant-Colonel James Grant. 
Starting early in June, they carried with 
them seven hundred packhorses, four hun- 
dred head of cattle, and a large train of bag- 
gage and supplies. Their route from Fort 
Prince George to the lower and middle 
Cherokee towns on the Little Tennessee lay 
through a rough, mountainous country; high 
water, storms, intensely warm weather, the 
lack of tents, and bruises from rocks and 
48 



Red Man Against White Man 

briers, caused the troops to suffer greatly. 
After heavy losses from ambuscades in nar- 
row denies, they finally reached their des- 
tination, and spent a month in burning and 
ravaging fifteen or more large villages and 
fourteen hundred acres of growing corn, and 
in driving five thousand men, women, and 
children into the hills to starve. Wrote one 
of the pious participators in this terrible 
work of devastation : " Heaven has blest us 
with the greatest success; we have finished 
our business as completely as the most san- 
guine of us could have wished." The Chero- 
kees, completely crushed, humbly begged for 
peace, which was granted upon liberal terms 
and proved to be permanent. 

The northern column was composed of 
backwoodsmen from Virginia and North 
Carolina, under Colonel William Byrd, an 
experienced campaigner. Byrd was much 
hampered for both men and supplies, and 
accomplished little. He appears to have 
largely spent his time in making roads and 
building blockhouses — laborious methods ill- 
fitted for Indian warfare, and loudly criti- 
cized by Waddell, who joined him with a 
5 49 



Daniel Boone 

regiment of five hundred North Carolinians, 
among whom was Daniel Boone, now re- 
turned to the Yadkin. Waddell and Boone 
had experienced the folly of this sort of 
thing in Braddock's ill-fated campaign. As 
a result of dissatisfaction, Byrd resigned, and 
Colonel Stephen succeeded him. The force, 
now composed of about twelve hundred men, 
pushed on to the Long Island of Holston 
Eiver, where they were met by four hundred 
Cherokees, who, brought to their knees by 
Grant, likewise sought peace from Stephen. 
Articles were accordingly signed on the nine- 
teenth of November. The North Carolina 
men returned home ; but a portion of the Vir- 
ginia regiment remained as a winter gar- 
rison for Fort Robinson, as the new fort at 
Long Island was called. 

Now that the Yadkin region has, after its 
sad experience, been blessed with a promise 
of peace, we may well pause, briefly to con- 
sider the ethics of border warfare. This life- 
history will, to its close, have much to do 
with Indian forays and white reprisals, and 
it is well that we should consider them dis- 
passionately. 

50 



Red Man Against White Man 

The Cherokees were conducting a warfare 
in defense of their villages, fields, and hunt- 
ing-grounds, which were being rapidly de- 
stroyed by the inrush of white settlers, who 
seemed to think that the Indians had no 
rights worth consideration. Encouraged by 
the French, who deemed the English intrud- 
ers on lands which they had first explored, the 
American aborigines seriously thought that 
they might stem the tide of English settle- 
ment. It was impossible that they should 
win, for civilization has in such cases ever 
triumphed over savagery; but that they 
should make the attempt was to be expected 
from a high-spirited race trained to war. 
We can but sympathize with and honor them 
for making their several stout stands against 
the European wave which was ultimately to 
sweep them from their native land.* King 



* " I had rafher receive the blessing of one poor Cherokee, 
as he casts his last look back upon his country, for having, 
though in vain, attempted to prevent his banishment, than to 
sleep beneath the marble of all the Ceessirs."— Extract from a 
speech of Theodore Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, delivered 
in the United States Senate, April 7, 1830. 

"lam not aware that any community has a right to force 
another to be civilized." — John Stuart Mill. 

51 



Daniel Boone 

Philip, Opecancano, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Bed 
Jacket, Sitting Bull, Captain Jack, were 
types of successive leaders who, at various 
stages of our growth westward, have stood 
as bravely as any Spartan hero to contest 
our all-conquering advance. 

It is the time-honored custom of histori- 
ans of the frontier to consider Indians as 
all wrong and whites as all right; and that, 
of course, was the opinion of the borderers 
themselves — of Daniel Boone and all the men 
of his day. But we are now far enough re- 
moved from these events, and the fierce pas- 
sions they engendered, to see them more 
clearly. The Indian was a savage and 
fought like a savage — cruel, bloodthirsty, un- 
relenting, treacherous, seldom a respecter of 
childhood, of age, or of women. But one 
can not read closely the chronicles of border 
warfare without discovering that civilized 
men at times could, in fighting savages, de- 
scend quite as low in the scale as they, in 
bloodthirstiness and treachery. Some of the 
most atrocious acts in the pioneer history of 
Kentucky and the Middle West were per- 
formed by whites; and some of the most 



Red Man Against White Man 

Christianlike deeds — there were many such 
on both sides — were those of painted sav- 
ages. 

It is needless to blame either of the con- 
tending races; their conflict was inevitable. 
The frontiersman was generally unlettered, 
and used, without ceremony, to overcoming 
the obstacles which nature set in his path; 
one more patient could not have tamed the 
wilderness as quickly as he. His children 
often rose to high positions as scholars, 
statesmen, and diplomats. But he himself 
was a diamond in the rough, and not accus- 
tomed to nice ethical distinctions. To his 
mind the Indian was an inferior being, if 
not a child of Satan; he was not making the 
best use of the soil; his customs and habits 
of thought were such as to repel the British 
mind, however much they may have attracted 
the French. The tribesmen, whom the pio- 
neer could not and would not understand, 
stood in his way, hence must be made to go or 
to die in his tracks. When the savage, quick 
to resentment, struck back, the turbulent pas- 
sions of the overbearing white were aroused, 
and with compound interest he repaid the 
53 



Daniel Boone 

blow. Upon the theory that the devil must 
be fought with fire, the borderer not seldom 
adopted methods of reprisal that outdid the 
savage in brutality. 

The red man fighting, after his own wild 
standards, for all that he held most dear, and 
the white man, who brooks no opposition 
from an inferior race, hitting back with a 
fury sometimes increased by fear — such, in 
brief, is the blood-stained history of the 
American border. 



* 



54 



CHAPTER V 

KENTUCKY REACHED AT LAST 

When Daniel Boone returned from tide- 
water Virginia to the Yadkin region is not 
now known. It is probable that the monotony 
of hauling tobacco to market at a time when 
his old neighbors were living in a state of 
panic palled upon a man who loved excite- 
ment and had had a taste of Indian warfare. 
It has been surmised that he served with 
the Rowan rangers upon Lyttleton's cam- 
paign, alluded to in the previous chapter, 
and possibly aided in defending Fort Dobbs, 
or served with Waddell under Montgomery. 
That he was, some time in 1760, in the moun- 
tains west of the Yadkin upon either a hunt 
or a scout, or both, appears to be well es- 
tablished; for up to a few years ago there 
was still standing upon the banks of Boone's 
Creek, a small tributary of the Watauga in 
eastern Tennessee, a tree upon whose smooth 
bark had been rudely carved this character- 
55 



Daniel Boone 

istic legend, undoubtedly by the great hunter 
himself: " D Boon cilled A BAR on this tree 
year 1760." * 

We have already seen that he accompa- 
nied Waddell in 1761, when that popular 
frontier leader reenforced Colonel Byrd's ex- 
pedition against the Cherokees. Upon Wad- 
dell's return to North Carolina his leather- 
shirted followers dispersed to their homes, 
and Boone was again enabled to undertake a 
protracted hunt, no longer disturbed by fear 
that in his absence Indians might raid the 
settlement; for hunting was now his chief 
occupation, his wife and children conducting 
the farm, which held second place in his af- 
fections. Thus we see how close the border- 
ers came to the savage life wherein men are 
the warriors and hunters and women the 
crop-gatherers and housekeepers. Organiz- 
ing a party of kindred spirits — a goodly por- 
tion of the Yadkin settlers were more hunters 
than farmers — Boone crossed the mountains 
and roamed through the valleys of southwest 

* Boone had a strong fancy for carving his name and hunt- 
ing feats upon trees. His wanderings have very largely been 
traced by this means. 

56 




A BOOXE TREE. 

Tree on Boone's Creek, Tenn., bearing Daniel Boone's autograph. 
(See pp. 55, 56.) 



Kentucky Reached at Last 

Virginia and eastern Tennessee, being es- 
pecially delighted with the Valley of the 
Holston, where game was found to be unusu- 
ally abundant. At about the same time an- 
other party of nineteen hunters went upon a 
similar expedition into the hills and valleys 
westward of the Yadkin, penetrating well 
into Tennessee, and being absent for eight- 
een months. 

We must not conclude, from the passion- 
ate devotion to hunting exhibited by these 
backwoodsmen of the eighteenth century, 
that they led the same shiftless, aimless lives 
as are followed by the " poor whites " found 
in some of the river-bottom communities of 
our own day, who are in turn farmers, fisher- 
men, or hunters, as fancy or the seasons dic- 
tate. It must be remembered that farming 
upon the Virginia and Carolina uplands was, 
in the pioneer period, crude as to methods 
and insignificant as to crops. The principal 
wealth of the well-to-do was in herds of 
horses and cattle which grazed in wild mead- 
ows, and in droves of long-nosed swine feed- 
ing upon the roots and acorns of the hillside 
forests. Among the outlying settlers much 
57 



Daniel Boone 

of the family food came from the woods, and 
often months would pass without bread be- 
ing seen inside the cabin walls. Besides the 
live stock of the richer folk, whose herds were 
driven to market, annual caravans to tide- 
water towns carried furs and skins won by 
the real backwoodsmen, who lived on the 
fringe of the wilderness. For lack of money 
accounts were kept in pelts, and with these 
were purchased rifles, ammunition, iron, and 
salt. It was, then, to the forests that the 
borderers largely looked for their suste- 
nance. Hence those long hunts, from which 
the men of the Yadkin, unerring marksmen, 
would come back laden with great packs of 
pelts for the markets, and dried venison, 
bear's meat, and bear's oil for their family 
larders. Naturally, this wandering, ad- 
venturous life, spiced with excitement in 
many forms, strongly appealed to the rough, 
hardy borderers, and unfitted them for other 
occupations. Under such conditions farm- 
ing methods were not likely to improve, nor 
the arts of civilization to prosper; for the 
hunter not only best loved the wilder- 
ness, but settlement narrowed his hunting- 
58 



Kentucky Reached at Last 

grounds. Thus it was that the frontiersman 
of the Daniel Boone type, Indian hater as he 
was, had at heart much the same interests 
as the savage whom he was seeking to sup- 
plant. It was simply a question as to which 
hunter, red or white, should occupy the for- 
est; to neither was settlement welcome. 

With the opening of 1762 the southwest 
border began to be reoccupied. The aban- 
doned log cabins once more had fires lighted 
upon their hearths, at the base of the great 
outside chimneys of stones and mud-plastered 
boughs; the deserted clearings, which had 
become choked with weeds and underbrush 
in the five years of Indian warfare, were 
again cultivated by their reassured owners. 
Among the returned refugees were Daniel's 
parents, Squire and Sarah Boone, who had 
ridden on horseback overland all the way 
from Maryland. Three years later Squire 
Boone died, one of the most highly esteemed 
men in the valley. 

The Yadkin country was more favored 

than some other portions of the backwoods 

of North Carolina. Pontiac's uprising 

(1763) against the English, who had now 

59 



Daniel Boone 

supplanted the French in Canada and in the 
wilderness between the Alleghanies and the 
Mississippi, led some of the Southern tribes 
again to attack the frontiers of the South- 
west ; but they were defeated before the Yad- 
kin was affected by this fresh panic. 

The Indian wars had lasted so long that 
the entire border had become demoralized. 
Of course not all the people in the backwoods 
were of good character. Not a few of them 
had been driven out from the more thickly 
settled parts of the country because of crimes 
or of bad reputation; and some of the fur- 
traders who lived upon the edge of the set- 
tlement were sorry rogues. When the panic- 
stricken people were crowded within the nar- 
row walls of the forts they could not work. 
Many of them found this life of enforced 
idleness to their liking, and fell into the habit 
of making secret expeditions to plunder 
abandoned houses and to steal uncared-for 
live stock. When peace came these maraud- 
ers had acquired a distaste for honest labor ; 
leaving the forts, they pillaged right and left, 
and horse-stealing became an especially 
prevalent frontier vice. 
60 



Kentucky Reached at Last 

Justice on the border was as yet insuffi- 
ciently organized. Some of the Virginia and 
Carolina magistrates were themselves ras- 
cals, whose decisions could be purchased by 
criminals. Many of the best citizens, there- 
fore, formed associations whose members 
were called " regulators." They bound 
themselves to pursue, arrest, and try crim- 
inals, and to punish them by whipping, also 
by expulsion from the neighborhood. The 
law-breakers, on the other hand, organized 
in defense, and popular opinion was divided 
between the two elements; for there were 
some good people who did not like the arbi- 
trary methods of the regulators, and insisted 
upon every man being given a regular trial 
by jury. In South Carolina, particularly, 
the settlers were much exercised on this 
question, and arrayed themselves into oppo- 
sing bands, armed to carry out their respect- 
ive views. For a time civil war was feared ; 
but finally, after five years of disturbance, 
an agreement was reached, efficient courts 
were established, and justice triumphed. 

Affairs did not reach so serious a stage 
in North Carolina. Nevertheless there were 
61 



Daniel Boone 

several bands of vicious and indolent men, 
who, entrenched in the hills, long defied the 
regulators. One of these parties built a 
rude stockaded fort beneath an overhanging 
cliff in the mountains back of the Yadkin 
settlements. They stole horses, cattle, farm- 
ing utensils ; in fact, anything that they could 
lay their hands upon. One day they grew so 
bold as to kidnap a girl. The settlers, now 
roused to action, organized attacking com- 
panies, one of them headed by Daniel Boone, 
and carried the log fortress of the bandits 
by storm. The culprits were taken to Salis- 
bury jail and the clan broken up. 

The rapid growth of the country soon 
made game scarce in Boone's neighborhood. 
Not only did the ever-widening area of 
cleared fields destroy the cover, but there 
were, of course, more hunters than before. 
Thus our Nimrod, who in his early manhood 
cared for nothing smaller than deer, was 
compelled to take extended trips in his 
search for less-frequented places. It was not 
long before he had explored all the moun- 
tains and valleys within easy reach, and be- 
come familiar with the views from every 
02 



Kentucky Reached at Last 

peak in the region, many of them five and six 
thousand feet in height. 

As early as 1764-65 Boone was in the 
habit of taking with him, upon these trips 
near home, his little son James, then seven 
or eight years of age. This was partly for 
company, but mainly for the lad's education 
as a hunter. Frequently they would spend 
several days together in the woods during the 
autumn and early winter — the deer-hunting 
season — and often, when in " open " camps, 
were overtaken by snow-storms. On such 
occasions the father would keep the boy 
warm by clasping him to his bosom as they 
lay with feet toward the glowing camp-fire. 
As the well-taught lad grew into early man- 
hood these two companions would be absent 
from home for two and three months to- 
gether, always returning well laden with the 
spoils of the chase. 

Hunters in Boone's day had two kinds of 
camp — " open " when upon the move, which 
meant sleeping in their blankets upon the 
ground wherever darkness or weariness 
overtook them ; " closed " where remaining 
for some time in a locality. A closed camp 
63 



Daniel Boone 

consisted of a rude hut of logs or poles, the 
front entirely open, the sides closely chinked 
with moss, and the roof covered with blank- 
ets, boughs, or bark, sloping down to a back- 
log. In times when the Indians were not 
feared a fire was kept up throughout the 
night, in front, in order to warm the enclo- 
sure. Upon a bed of hemlock boughs or of 
dried leaves the hunters lay with heads to 
the back-log and stockinged feet to the blaze, 
for their spongy moccasins were hung to dry.* 
Such a camp, often called a " half-faced 
cabin," was carefully placed so that it might 
be sheltered by neighboring hills from the 
cold north and west winds. It was fairly 
successful as a protection from rain and 
snow, and sometimes served a party of hunt- 
ers throughout several successive seasons; 
but it was ill-fitted for the coldest weather. 
Boone frequently occupied a shelter of this 
kind in the woods of Kentucky. 

During the last four months of 1765 
Boone and seven companions went on horse- 
back to the new colony of Florida with a view 

* When Indians were about, moccasins were always tied to 
the guns so as to be ready to slip on in case of a night alarm. 

64: 



Kentucky Reached at Last 

to moving thither if they found it suited 
to their tastes. Wherever possible, they 
stopped overnight at borderers' cabins upon 
the frontiers of the Carolinas and Georgia. 
But such opportunities did not always occur ; 
they often suffered from hunger, and once 
they might have died from starvation but for 
the timely succor of a roving band of Semi- 
nole Indians. They explored Florida all the 
way from St. Augustine to Pensacola, and 
appear to have had a rather wretched time 
of it. The trails were miry from frequent 
rains, the number and extent of the swamps 
appalled them, and there was not game 
enough to satisfy a man like Boone, who 
scorned alligators. Pensacola, however, so 
pleased him that he determined to settle 
there, and purchased a house and lot which 
he might in due time occupy. Upon their re- 
turn Boone told his wife of his Pensacola ven- 
ture, but this sturdy woman of the frontier 
spurned the idea of moving to a gameless 
land. So the town lot was left to take care 
of itself, and henceforth the dutiful husband 
looked only to the West as his model of a 
perfect country. 

6 65 



Daniel Boone 

At the close of the French and Indian 
War there arrived in the Boone settlement 
a Scotch-Irishman named Benjamin Cut- 
birth, aged about twenty-three years. He 
was a man of good character and a fine hunt- 
er. Marrying Elizabeth Wilcoxen, a niece of 
Daniel Boone, he and Boone went upon long 
hunts together, and attained that degree of 
comradeship which joint life in a wilderness 
camp is almost certain to produce. 

In 1766 several families from North Caro- 
lina went to Louisiana, apparently by sea to 
New Orleans, and founded an English set- 
tlement above Baton Rouge on the Missis- 
sippi River. The news of this event gave 
rise to a general desire for exploring the 
country between the mountains and the great 
river. The year following, Cutbirth, John 
Stuart, John Baker, and John Ward, all of 
them young married men on the Yadkin, and 
excellent hunters, resolved to perform this 
feat, and if possible to discover a region su- 
perior to their own valley. They crossed the 
mountain range and eventually saw the Mis- 
sissippi, being, so far as we know from con- 
temporary documents, the first party of 
66 



Kentucky Reached at Last 

white men to succeed in this overland enter- 
prise. Possibly fur-traders may have done 
so before them, but they left no record to 
prove it. 

Cutbirth and his friends spent a year or 
two upon the river. In the autumn they as- 
cended the stream for a considerable dis- 
tance, also one of its tributaries, made a sta- 
tionary camp for the winter, and in the 
spring descended to New Orleans, where they 
sold at good prices their skins, furs, bear- 
bacon, bear's oil, buffalo "jerk" (dried 
meat), tallow, and dried venison hams. 
Their expedition down the river was per- 
formed at great risks, for they had many 
hairbreadth escapes from snags, river banks 
shelving in, whirlpools, wind-storms, and In- 
dians. Their reward, says a chronicler of 
the day, was "quite a respectable prop- 
erty ; " but while upon their return home- 
ward, overland, they were set upon by Choc- 
taws, who robbed them of their all. 

Meanwhile, Daniel Boone was slow in 

making up his mind to leave home and the 

wife and family whom he dearly loved for so 

long and perilous a trip as a journey into 

67 



Daniel Boone 

the now much-talked-of land of Kentucky. 
Perhaps, despite his longings, he might never 
have gone had affairs upon the Yadkin re- 
mained satisfactory to him. But game, his 
chief reliance, was year by year becoming 
harder to obtain. And the rascally agents 
of Earl Granville, the principal landholder 
of the region, from whom the Boones had 
purchased, were pretending to find flaws in 
the land-titles and insisting upon the neces- 
sity for new deeds, for which large fees were 
exacted. 

This gave rise to great popular discon- 
tent. Boone's protest consisted in leaving 
the Sugar Tree settlement and moving north- 
west for sixty-five miles toward the head of 
the Yadkin. His new cabin, a primitive shell 
of logs, could still be seen, a few years ago, 
at the foot of a range of hills some seven 
and a half miles above Wilkesboro, in Wilkes 
County. After a time, dissatisfied with this 
location, he moved five miles farther up the 
river and about half a mile up Beaver Creek. 
Again he changed his mind, choosing his 
final home on the upper Yadkin, just above 
the mouth of Beaver. It was from this beau- 
68 ,- 



Kentucky Reached at Last 

tiful region among the Alleghany foot-hills, 
where game and fish were plenty and his 
swine and cattle had good range, that Boone, 
crowded out by advancing civilization, even- 
tually moved to Kentucky. 

In the spring and early summer of 1767 
there were fresh outbreaks on the part of 
the Indians. Governor Tryon had run a 
boundary-line between the back settlements 
of the Carolinas and the Cherokee hunting- 
grounds. But hunters and traders would 
persist in wandering to the west of this line, 
and sometimes they were killed. 

In the autumn of that year Daniel Boone 
and a warm friend, William Hill, and possi- 
bly Squire Boone, determined to seek Ken- 
tucky, of which Finley had told him twelve 
years before. They crossed the mountain 
wall, were in the valleys of the Holston and 
the Clinch, and reached the head waters of 
the West Fork of the Big Sandy. Following 
down this river for a hundred miles, deter- 
mined to find the Ohio, they appear to have 
struck a buffalo-path, along which they trav- 
eled as far as a salt-lick ten miles west of 
the present town of Prestonburg, on a tribu- 
69 



Daniel Boone 

tary of the West (or Louisa) Fork of the 
Sandy, within Floyd County, in the extreme 
eastern part of Kentucky. 

Caught in a severe snow-storm, they were 
compelled to camp at this lick for the entire 
winter. It proved to be the most profitable 
station that they could have selected, for buf- 
faloes and other animals came in large num- 
bers to lick the brackish soil, and all the hunt- 
ers had to do was to " rise, kill, and eat." 

Although now considerably west of the 
Cumberland Mountains, the explorers were 
not aware that they were within the famed 
Kentucky ; and as the country was very hilly, 
covered with briers which annoyed them 
greatly, and altogether forbidding, they de- 
spaired of reaching the promised land by 
this path, and in the spring returned to the 
Yadkin. 



70 



CHAPTER VI 

ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS 

In the winter of 1768-69 a pedler with 
horse and wagon wandered into the valley 
of the upper Yadkin, offering small wares 
to the settled wives. This was thrifty John 
Finley, former fur-trader and Indian fighter, 
who, thirteen years before, had, as we have 
seen, fraternized with Boone in Braddock's 
ill-fated army on the Monongahela. Finley 
had, in 1752, in his trade with the Indians, 
descended the Ohio in a canoe to the site of 
Louisville, accompanied by three or four 
voyageurs, and, with some of his dusky cus- 
tomers, traveled widely through the interior 
of Kentucky. His glowing descriptions of 
this beautiful land had inspired Boone to try 
to find it. The latter was still sorrowing over 
his unpromising expedition by way of the Big 
Sandy when, by the merest chance, the man 
who had fired his imagination knocked at his 
very door. 

71 



Daniel Boone 

Throughout the winter that Finley was 
Daniel's guest, he and his brother Squire were 
ready listeners to the pedler's stories of the 
over-mountain country — tales of countless 
water-fowl, turkeys, deer, elk, and buffaloes, 
which doubtless lost nothing in the telling. 
The two Boones resolved to try Finley's pro- 
posed route by way of Cumberland Gap, and 
the fur-trader promised to lead the way. 

After the spring crops were in, Finley, 
Daniel Boone, and the latter's brother-in-law, 
John Stuart, started from Daniel's house 
upon the first of May. In their employ, as 
hunters and camp-keepers, were three neigh- 
bors — Joseph Holden, James Mooney, and 
William Cooley. Each man was fully armed, 
clad in the usual deerskin costume of the 
frontier, and mounted upon a good horse; 
blanket or bearskin was strapped on behind 
the saddle, together with camp-kettle, a store 
of salt, and a small supply of provisions, al- 
though their chief food was to be game. 
Squire remained to care for the crops of the 
two families, and agreed to reenforce the 
hunters late in the autumn. 

Scaling the lofty Blue Ridge, the explorers 
72 



Alone in the Wilderness 

passed over Stone and Iron Mountains and 
reached Holston Valley, whence they pro- 
ceeded through Moccasin Gap of Clinch 
Mountain, and crossed over intervening riv- 
ers and densely wooded hills until they came 
to Powell's Valley, then the farthest limit of 
white settlement. Here they found a hunt- 
er's trail which led them through Cumber- 
land Gap. The " warriors' path " — trodden 
by Indian war-parties from across the moun- 
tains — was now discovered, and this they fol- 
lowed by easy stages until at last they 
reached what is now called Station Camp 
Creek, a tributary of the Kentucky River, in 
Estill County, Ky. — so named because here 
was built their principal, or " station " camp, 
the center of their operations for many 
months to come. 

While Boone, Finley, and Stuart made 
frequent explorations, and Boone in particu- 
lar ascended numerous lofty hills in order to 
view the country, the chief occupation of the 
party was hunting. Throughout the summer 
and autumn deerskins were in their best 
condition. Other animals were occasionally 
killed to afford variety of food, but iur-bear- 
73 



Daniel Boone 

ers as a rule only furnish fine pelts in the 
winter season. Even in the days of abun- 
dant game the hunter was required to exer- 
cise much skill, patience, and endurance. It 
was no holiday task to follow this calling. 
Deer, .especially, were difficult to obtain. 
The habits of this excessively cautious ani- 
mal were carefully studied; the hunter must 
know how to imitate its various calls, to take 
advantage of wind and weather, and to prac- 
tise all the arts of strategy. 

Deerskins were, all things considered, the 
most remunerative of all. When roughly 
dressed and dried they were worth about a 
dollar each; as they were numerous, and a 
horse could carry for a long distance about a 
hundred such skins, the trade was considered 
profitable in those primitive times, when dol- 
lars were hard to obtain. Pelts of beavers, 
found in good condition only in the winter, 
were worth about two dollars and a half 
each, and of otters from three to five dollars. 
Thus, a horse-load of beaver furs, when ob- 
tainable, was worth about five times that of a 
load of deerskins; and if a few otters could 
be thrown in, the value was still greater. The 

n 



Alone in the Wilderness 

skins of buffaloes, bears, and elks were too 
bulky to carry for long distances, and were 
not readily marketable. A few elk-hides were 
needed, however, to cut up into harness and 
straps, and bear- and buffalo-robes were use- 
ful for bedding. 

When an animal was killed the hunter 
skinned it on the spot, and packed on his 
back the hide and the best portion of the 
meat. At night the meat was smoked or pre- 
pared for "jerking," and the skins were 
scraped and cured. When collected at the 
camps, the bales of skins, protected from 
the weather by strips of bark, were placed 
upon high scaffolds, secure from bears and 
wolves. 

Our Yadkin hunters were in the habit, 
each day, of dividing themselves into pairs 
for company and mutual aid in times of 
danger, usually leaving one pair behind as 
camp-keepers. Boone and Stuart frequently 
were companions upon such trips; for the 
former, being a man of few words, enjoyed 
by contrast the talkative, happy disposition 
of his friend. Occasionally the entire party, 
when the game grew timid, moved for some 
75 



Daniel Boone 

distance, where they would establish a new 
camp; but their headquarters remained at 
Station Camp, where were kept their princi- 
pal skins, furs, and stores. In this way the 
time passed from June to December. Boone 
used to assert, in after years, that these 
months were the happiest of his life. The 
genial climate, the beauty of the country, and 
the entire freedom of this wild life, strongly 
appealed to him. Here this taciturn but 
good-natured man, who loved solitary adven- 
ture, was now in his element. Large packs of 
skins had been obtained by the little com- 
pany and stored at Station Camp and their 
outlying shelters; and there was now a gen- 
erous supply of buffalo, bear, and elk meat, 
venison, and turkeys, all properly jerked for 
the winter which was before them, with buf- 
falo tallow and bear's oil to serve as cooking 
grease. 

Finley and Boone were both aware that 
Kentucky lay between the warring tribes of 
the North and the South; that through it 
warriors' paths crossed in several directions ; 
and that this, probably the finest hunting- 
field in North America, was a debatable land, 
76 



Alone in the Wilderness 

frequently fought over by contending sav- 
ages — a " dark and bloody ground " indeed. 
.Yet thus far there had been no signs of In- 
dians, and the Carolina hunters had almost 
ceased to think of them. 

Toward the close of day on the twenty- 
second of December, while Boone and Stuart 
were ascending a low hill near the Kentucky 
Eiver, in one of the most beautiful districts 
they had seen, they were suddenly surround- 
ed and captured by a large party of Shaw- 
nese horsemen returning from an autumn 
hunt on Green Eiver to their homes north 
of the Ohio. The two captives were forced 
to lead the savages to their camps, which 
were deliberately plundered, one after the 
other, of everything in them. The Shaw- 
nese, releasing their prisoners, considerately 
left with each hunter just enough supplies 
to enable him to support himself on the way 
back to the settlements. The white men 
were told what was a fact under existing 
treaties with the tribes — treaties, however, of 
which Boone and his companions probably 
knew nothing — that they were trespassing 
upon Indian hunting-grounds, and must not 
77 



Daniel Boone 

come again, or " the wasps and yellow- 
jackets will sting you severely." 

The others proposed to leave for home at 
once ; but Boone and Stuart, enraged at hav- 
ing lost their year's work and all that they 
had brought into the wilderness, and having 
no sympathy for Indian treaty rights, start- 
ed out to recover their property. After two 
days they came up with the Shawnese, and 
secreting themselves in the bushes until dark, 
contrived to regain four or five horses and 
make off with them. But they, in turn, were 
overtaken in two days by the Indians and 
again made prisoners. After a week of cap- 
tivity, in which they were kindly treated, they 
effected their escape in the dark and re- 
turned to Station Camp. 

Their companions, giving them up for 
lost, had departed toward home, but were 
overtaken by the two adventurers. Boone 
was gratified to find with them his brother 
Squire, who, having gathered the fall crops, 
had come out with a fresh supply of horses, 
traps, and ammunition. He had followed 
the trail of his predecessors, and in the New 
River region was joined by Alexander Neely. 
78 



Alone in the Wilderness 

Not finding Daniel and Stuart at Station 
Camp, and grief-stricken at the report con- 
cerning them, he was traveling homeward 
with the party. 

Daniel, however, who had staked npon 
this venture almost all that he owned, did 
not relish the thought of returning empty- 
handed, now that reenforcements had ar- 
rived, and determined to stay and seek to 
regain his lost fortunes. Squire, Stuart, and 
Neely concluded also to remain, and the four 
were now left behind in the wilderness. On 
reaching the Holston Valley, Finley turned 
northward to seek his relatives in Pennsyl- 
vania; while Holden, Mooney, and Cooley 
proceeded southeastward to their Yadkin 
homes, carrying dismal news of the events at- 
tending this notable exploration of Kentucky. 

The quartette promptly abandoned Sta- 
tion Camp as being dangerously near the 
warriors' path, and, tradition says, built an- 
other on or near the northern bank of Ken- 
tucky River, not far from the mouth of the 
Eed. The deer season was now over, but 
beavers and otters were in their prime, and 
soon the hunters were enjoying a profitable 
79 



Daniel Boone 

season. A small canoe which they built add- 
ed greatly to their equipment, and they were 
now enabled to set their traps throughout 
a wide region. 

Hunting in pairs, Daniel was generally 
accompanied by Stuart, while Neely and 
Squire were partners. In their wanderings 
the two pairs were sometimes several days 
without seeing each other; and frequently 
partners would be separated throughout the 
day, but at night met at some appointed spot. 
One day, toward the close of January or 
early in February (1770), Stuart did not re- 
turn to the rendezvous, much to Boone's 
alarm. The following day the latter discov- 
ered the embers of a fire, doubtless built by 
the lost man; but that was all, for Stuart 
was seen no more. Five years later Boone 
came across the bones of his light-hearted 
comrade in a hollow sycamore tree upon 
Eockcastle River — he recognized them by 
Stuart's name cut upon his powder-horn. 
What caused Stuart's death is a mystery to 
the present day; possibly he was wounded 
and chased by Indians to this distant spot, 
and died while in hiding. 
80 



Alone in the Wilderness 

Stuart's mysterious disappearance fright- 
ened Neely, who at once left for home, thus 
leaving Daniel and Squire to pass the re- 
mainder of the winter in the wilderness by 
themselves. Dejected, but not discouraged, 
the brothers built a comfortable hut and con- 
tinued their work. With the close of the 
trapping season the ammunition was nearly 
exhausted. Upon the first of May, a year 
after Daniel had left his cabin upon the up- 
per Yadkin, Squire started out upon the re- 
turn, their horses well laden with furs, skins, 
and jerked meat. Both men had, in their 
enterprise, contracted debts of considerable 
extent for frontier hunters, hence they were 
anxious to square themselves with the world, 
as well as to obtain more horses, ammuni- 
tion, and miscellaneous supplies. 

Daniel was now left alone in Kentucky, 
" without bread, salt, or sugar, without com- 
pany of his fellow-creatures, or even a horse 
or dog." In after years he acknowledged 
that he was at times homesick during the 
three months which followed, and felt deeply 
his absence from the wife and family to 
whom he was so warmly attached. But pos- 
7 81 



Daniel Boone 

sessing a cheerful, hopeful nature, he forgot 
his loneliness in untrammeled enjoyment of 
the far-stretching wilderness. 

Almost without ammunition, he could not 
hunt, save to obtain sufficient food, and large- 
ly spent his time in exploration. Fearing In- 
dians, he frequently changed his location, 
sometimes living in shelters of bark and 
boughs, and again in caves ; but seldom ven- 
turing to sleep in these temporary homes, 
preferring the thickets and the dense cane- 
brakes as less liable to be sought by savage 
prowlers. 

Kentucky has a remarkably diversified 
landscape of densely wooded hills and val- 
leys and broad prairie expanses. The genial 
climate admirably suited the philosophical 
wanderer. He enjoyed the exquisite beauty 
and stateliness of the trees — the sycamores, 
tulip-trees, sugar-trees, honey-locusts, coffee- 
trees, pawpaws, cucumber-trees, and black 
mulberries — and found flowers in surprising 
variety and loveliness. The mineral springs 
interested him — Big Lick, the Blue Licks, and 
Big Bone Lick, with its fossil remains of 
mastodons which had become mired when 



Alone in the Wilderness 

coming to lick the brackish soil. He traveled 
far and wide in his search for the beautiful 
and curious, being chiefly in the valleys of 
the Licking and the Kentucky, and upon the 
banks of the Ohio as far down as the site of 
Louisville, where, at the foot of the falls, he 
inspected the remains of an old fur trade 
stockade concerning which Finley had told 
him. 

Once he saw some Indians walking upon 
the northern bank of the Ohio, but managed 
himself to keep out of sight. At another 
time, when on the Kentucky, he saw a savage 
calmly fishing from the trunk of a fallen 
tree. In mentioning this incident to his fam- 
ily, in later days, he would declare with grav- 
ity : " While I was looking at the fellow he 
tumbled into the river, and I saw him no 
more." Probably the man of the Yadkin 
shot him, fearing that the fisherman might 
carry the news of the former's whereabouts 
to a possible camp near by. On another oc- 
casion, when exploring Dick's River, he was 
suddenly surrounded by Indians. Having 
either to surrender or to leap down the pre- 
cipitous height to a bank sixty feet below, 
83 



Daniel Boone 

he chose to leap. Landing in the top of a 
small sugar-maple, he slid down the tree, 
and was able to escape by running under the 
overhanging bank and then swimming the 
stream. Adventures such as this gave 
abundant spice to the joys of solitude. 

In the latter part of July Squire arrived 
from the settlements, having paid all their 
debts and with the surplus purchased suf- 
ficient supplies for another summer and fall 
campaign against the deer. This was highly 
successful. They did not lack some interest- 
ing experiences, but Indians were not again 
encountered; so that, when winter ap- 
proached, Squire was enabled once more to 
leave with well-laden horses for the markets 
of the East. Another two months of loneli- 
ness were suffered by Daniel; but in De- 
cember Squire rejoined him with horses, am- 
munition, and other necessaries, and the pair 
joyously settled down for still another winter 
together in the dark and lonely forests of 
Kentucky. 



84 



CHAPTER VII 

PREDECESSORS AND CONTEMPORARIES 

The reader of this narrative has, of 
course, already discovered that Daniel Boone 
was neither the original white explorer of 
Kentucky nor the first white hunter within 
its limits. Many others had been there be- 
fore him. It will be worth our while at this 
point to take a hasty review of some of the 
previous expeditions which had made the 
"dark and bloody ground" known to the 
world. 

Probably none of the several Spanish ex- 
plorations of the sixteenth century along the 
Mississippi River and through the Gulf 
States had touched Kentucky. But during 
the seventeenth century both the French in 
Canada and the English on the Atlantic tide- 
water came to have fairly accurate notions 
of the country lying immediately to the south 
of the Ohio River. As early as 1650 Gov- 
ernor Berkeley, of Virginia, made a vain at- 
85 



Daniel Boone 

tempt to cross the Alleghany barrier in 
search of the Mississippi, concerning which 
he had heard from Indians; and we know 
that at the same time the French, especially 
the Jesuit missionaries, were looking eagerly 
in that direction. A few years later Colo- 
nel Abraham Wood, of Virginia, discovered 
streams which poured into the Ohio and the 
Mississippi. Just a century before Boone's 
great hunt, John Lederer, also of Virginia, 
explored for a considerable distance beyond 
the mountains. The following year Thomas 
Batts and his party proclaimed King Charles 
II upon New River, the upper waters of the 
Great Kanawha — twelve months before La 
Salle took possession of all Western waters 
for the French king, and nineteen before 
Marquette and Joliet discovered the Missis- 
sippi. 

There is a tradition that in 1678, only 
five years after the voyage of Marquette and 
Joliet, a party of New Englanders ventured 
into the Western wilderness as far as New 
Mexico. The later French expeditions of 
La Salle, Hennepin, and D'lberville are well 
known. Several Englishmen traded with In- 
86 



Predecessors and Contemporaries 

dians upon the Mississippi before the close 
of the seventeenth century ; by 1719 the Eng- 
lish were so numerous that Governor Keith, 
of Pennsylvania, suggested that four forts 
be built for their protection in the Wabash 
and Illinois countries. We hear of a French 
expedition investigating Big Bone Lick, in 
Kentucky, in 1735 ; and other visits were suc- 
cessively made by bands of their compatriots 
until the downfall of New France, over a 
quarter of a century later. In 1742 John 
Howard and Peter Sailing, of Virginia, were 
exploring in Kentucky ; six years after them 
Dr. Thomas Walker made a notable expedi- 
tion through the same country ; and two years 
after that Washington's backwoods friend, 
Christopher Gist, was on the site of Louis- 
ville selecting lands for the Ohio Company, 
which had a large grant upon the Ohio 
Eiver. 

Henceforward, border chronicles abound 
with reports of the adventures of English 
fur-traders, hunters, and land-viewers, all 
along the Ohio Eiver and tributary waters 
above Louisville. Among these early ad- 
venturers was our friend Finley, whose ex- 
87 



Daniel Boone 

periences in Kentucky dated from 1752, and 
who piloted Boone to the promised land 
through the gateway of Cumberland Gap. 
The subsequent Indian wars, with the expe- 
ditions into the upper Ohio Valley by Gen- 
erals Braddock, Forbes, and Bouquet, made 
the country still better known; and settlers 
were soon rushing in by scores, although as 
yet none of them appear to have made clear- 
ings within Kentucky itself. 

Officers and soldiers who had served in 
the French and Indian War were given lib- 
eral grants of land in the West. Washing- 
ton had not only his own grant, as the prin- 
cipal officer upon the southwest frontier, but 
was agent for a number of fellow-soldiers, 
and in 1767 went to the Ohio River to select 
and survey claims. At the very time when 
Boone was engaged upon his fruitless expe- 
dition down the Big Sandy, Washington was 
making the first surveys in Kentucky on both 
the Little and Big Sandy. Again, in 1770, 
when Boone was exploring the Kentucky 
wilderness, Washington was surveying ex- 
tensive tracts along the Ohio and the Great 
Kanawha, and planning for a large colony 
88 



Predecessors and Contemporaries 

upon his own lands. The outbreak of the 
Revolution caused the great man to turn his 
attention from the over-mountain region to 
the defense of his country. Had he been left 
to carry out his plans, he would doubtless 
have won fame as the most energetic of 
■Western pioneers. 

It will be remembered that when Boone 
and his companions passed through Cumber- 
land Gap in the early summer of 1769, they 
found the well-worn trail of other hunters 
who had preceded them from the settlements. 
The men of the Yadkin Valley were not the 
only persons seeking game in Kentucky that 
year. At about the time when Boone was 
bidding farewell to his family, Hancock 
and Richard Taylor, Abraham Hempinstall, 
and one Barbour, frontiersmen of the same 
type, started from their homes in Orange 
County, Va., to explore the valleys of the 
Ohio and Mississippi. They descended from 
Pittsburg in a boat, explored Kentucky, and 
proceeded into Arkansas, where they camped 
and hunted during the following winter. 
The next year two of them traveled eastward 
to Florida, and thence northwardly to their 
89 



Daniel Boone 

homes; the others stayed in Arkansas for 
another year, and returned by sea from New 
Orleans to New York. 

Simultaneously with the expeditions of 
Boone and the Taylors, a party of twenty or 
more adventurous hunters and explorers was 
formed in the New River region, in the Val- 
ley of Virginia. They set out in June 
(1769), piloted by Uriah Stone, who had been 
in Kentucky three years before. Entering 
by way of the now familiar Cumberland Gap, 
these men had experiences quite similar to 
those of Boone and his comrades. At some 
of the Kentucky salt-licks they found herds 
of buffaloes numbering up in the thousands 
— at one lick a hundred acres were densely 
massed with these bulky animals, who ex- 
hibited no fear until the wind blew from the 
hunters toward them, and then they would 
" dash wildly away in large droves and dis- 
appear." Like Boone's party, they also were 
the victims of Cherokees, who plundered 
their camps, and after leaving them some 
guns and a little ammunition, ordered them 
out of the country. The New River party 
being large, however, some of their number 
90 



Predecessors and Contemporaries 

were deputed to go to the settlements and 
bring back fresh supplies, so that they could 
finish their hunt. After further adventures 
with Indians half of the hunters returned 
home; while the others wandered into Ten- 
nessee and as far as the Ozark Mountains, 
finally reaching New Eiver through Georgia 
and the Carolinas. Another Virginian, 
named John McCulloch, who courted the 
perils of exploration, was in Kentucky in the 
summer of 1769 with a white man-servant 
and a negro. He visited the site of Terre 
Haute, Ind., and went by canoe to Natchez 
and New Orleans, and at length reached 
Philadelphia by sea. 

But the most famous of all the expedi- 
tions of the period was that of the "Long 
Hunters," as they have come to be known in 
Western history. Inspired by the favorable 
reports of Stone and others, about forty of 
the most noted and successful hunters of 
New River and Holston Valleys formed, in 
the summer of 1770, a company for hunting 
and trapping to the west of Cumberland 
Mountains. Under the leadership of two of 
the best woodsmen of the region, Joseph 
91 



Daniel Boone 

Drake and Henry Skaggs, and including sev- 
eral of Stone's party, they set out in early 
autumn fully prepared for meeting Indians 
and living on game. Each man took with 
him three packhorses, rifles, ammunition, 
traps, dogs, blankets, and salt, and was 
dressed in the deerskin costume of the times. 
Pushing on through Cumberland Gap, the 
adventurers were soon in the heart of Ken- 
tucky. In accordance with custom, they vis- 
ited some of the best licks — a few of which 
were probably first seen by them — for here 
wild beasts were always to be found in pro- 
fusion. At Knob Licks they beheld from 
an eminence which overlooked the springs 
" what they estimated at largely over a thou- 
sand animals, including buffaloe, elk, bear, 
and deer, with many wild turkies scattered 
among them — all quite restless, some playing, 
and others busily employed in licking the 
earth; but at length they took flight and 
bounded away all in one direction, so that in 
the brief space of a couple of minutes not 
an animal was to be seen." Within an area 
of many acres, the animals had eaten the 
salty earth to a depth of several feet. 



Predecessors and Contemporaries 

Successful in a high degree, the party 
ceased operations in February, and had com- 
pleted preparations for sending a large ship- 
ment of skins, furs, and " jerk " to the set- 
tlements, when, in their temporary absence, 
roving Cherokees robbed them of much of 
their stores and spoiled the greater part of 
the remainder. " Fifteen hundred skins 
gone to ruination ! " was the legend which 
one of them carved upon the bark of a neigh- 
boring tree, a record to which were appended 
the initials of each member of the party. A 
series of disasters followed, in the course of 
which two men were carried off by Indians 
and never again seen, and others fled for home. 
Those remaining, having still much ammu- 
nition and the horses, continued their hunt, 
chiefly upon the Green and Cumberland Riv- 
ers, and in due time brought together an- 
other store of peltries, almost as extensive as 
that despoiled by the savages. 

Not long after the robbery, when the 
Long Hunters were upon Green River, one 
of the parties into which the band was di- 
vided were going into camp for the night, 
when a singular noise was heard proceeding 
93 



Daniel Boone 

from a considerable distance in the forest. 
The leader, Caspar Mausker, commanded 
silence on the part of his comrades, and him- 
self crept cautiously from tree to tree in the 
direction of the sound. Imagine his surprise 
and amusement to find " a man bare-headed, 
stretched flat upon his back on a deerskin 
spread on the ground, singing merrily at the 
top of his voice ! " The singer was our hero, 
Daniel Boone, who, regardless of possible 
Indian neighbors, was thus enjoying himself 
while awaiting Squire's belated return to 
camp. Like most woodsmen of his day and 
ours, Boone was fond of singing, in his rude 
way, as well as of relating tales of stirring 
adventure. In such manner were many 
hours whiled away around the camp-fires of 
wilderness hunters. 

The Boones at once joined and spent some 
time with the Long Hunters, no doubt de- 
lighted at this opportunity of once more 
mingling with men of their kind. Among 
their amusements was that of naming rivers, 
creeks, and hills after members of the party ; 
many of these names are still preserved upon 
the map of Kentucky. At one time they dis- 
94 



Predecessors and Contemporaries 

covered that some French hunters from the 
Illinois country had recently visited a lick to 
kill buffaloes for their tongues and tallow, 
which they had loaded into a keel-boat and 
taken down the Cumberland. In after years 
one of the Long Hunters declared that this 
wholesale slaughter was so great " that one 
could walk for several hundred yards in and 
around the lick on buffaloes' skulls and 
bones, with which the whole flat around the 
lick was bleached." 

It was not until August that the Long 
Hunters returned to their homes, after a 
profitable absence of eleven months. But 
the Boone brothers left their comrades in 
March and headed for the Yadkin, with 
horses now well laden with spoils of the 
chase. They were deeply in debt for their 
latest supplies, but were returning in light 
heart, cheered with the prospect of settling 
their accounts and being able to revisit Ken- 
tucky in good condition. But in Powell's 
Valley, near Cumberland Gap, where they 
might well have supposed that small chance 
of danger remained, they were suddenly set 
upon by a war party of Northern Indians 
95 



Daniel Boone 

who had been raiding the white settlers as 
well as their Southern foes, the Cherokees 
and Catawbas. Roughly handled and robbed 
of their packs, the unfortunate hunters 
reached the Yadkin in no happy frame of 
mind. Daniel had been absent for two years, 
and was now poorer than when he left home. 
He used to say, however, in after years, that 
having at last seen Kentucky, his ideal of 
an earthly paradise, that served as solace for 
his woes. 



9G 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE HERO OP CLINCH VALLEY 

While Daniel Boone had been hunting 
and exploring amid the deep forests and wa- 
ving greenswards of Kentucky, important 
events had been taking place in the settle- 
ments. The colonists along the Atlantic tide- 
water had become so crowded that there were 
no longer any free lands in that region; and 
settlers' cabins in the western uplands of 
Pennsylvania, Maryland, the Carolinas, and 
Georgia had so multiplied that now much of 
the best land there had also been taken up. 
The far-outlying frontier upon which the 
Boones and Bryans had reared their rude 
log huts nearly a quarter of a century before, 
no longer abounded in game and in free pas- 
tures for roving herds; indeed, the frontier 
was now pushed forward to the west-flowing 
streams — to the head waters of the Watauga, 
Clinch, Powell, French Broad, Holston, and 
Nolichucky, all of them affluents of the Ten- 
8 97 



Daniel Boone 

nessee, and to the Monongahela and other 
tributaries of the upper Ohio. 

The rising tide of population demanded 
more room to the westward. The forbidding 
mountain-ranges had long hemmed in the 
restless borderers; but the dark-skinned 
wilderness tribes had formed a still more 
serious barrier, as, with rifles and toma- 
hawks purchased from white traders, they 
terrorized the slowly advancing outposts of 
civilization. With the French government no 
longer in control of Canada and the region 
east of the Mississippi — although French- 
Canadian woodsmen were freely employed 
by the British Indian Department — with the 
consequent quieting of Indian forays, with 
increased knowledge of the over-mountain 
passes, and with the strong push of popula- 
tion from behind, there had arisen a general 
desire to scale the hills, and beyond them 
to seek exemption from tax-gatherers, free 
lands, and the abundant game concerning 
which the Kentucky hunters had brought 
glowing reports. 

Upon the defeat of the French, the Eng- 
lish king had issued a proclamation (1763) 
98 



The Hero of Clinch Valley 

forbidding his " loving subjects " to settle to 
the west of the mountains. The home gov- 
ernment was no doubt actuated in this by 
two motives: first, a desire to preserve the 
wilderness for the benefit of the growing fur 
trade, which brought wealth to many London 
merchants; second, a fear that borderers 
who pushed beyond the mountains might not 
only be beyond the reach of English trade, 
but also beyond English political control. 
But the frontiersmen were already too far 
distant to have much regard for royal proc- 
lamations. The king's command appears to 
have had no more effect than had he, like 
one of his predecessors, bade the ocean tide 
rise no higher. 

In 1768, at Fort Stanwix, N. Y., the 
Iroquois of that province, whose war parties 
had raided much of the country between the 
Hudson and the Mississippi, surrendered 
what shadowy rights they might be supposed 
to have over all lands lying between the Ohio 
and the Tennessee. Meanwhile, at the South, 
the Cherokees had agreed to a frontier which 
opened to settlement eastern Kentucky and 
Tennessee. 

99 



L.ofC. 



Daniel Boone 

But, without waiting for these treaties, 
numerous schemes had been proposed in 
England and the Atlantic coast colonies for 
the settlement of Kentucky and the lands of 
the upper Ohio. Most of these projects 
failed, even the more promising of them be- 
ing checked by the opening of the Revolu- 
tionary War ; but their existence showed how 
general was the desire of English colonists 
to occupy those fertile Western lands which 
explorers like Gist, Washington, the Boones, 
and the Long Hunters had now made fa- 
miliar to the world. The new treaties 
strengthened this desire, so that when Daniel 
and Squire Boone reached their homes upon 
the Yadkin the subject of Western settle- 
ment was uppermost in the minds of the 
people. 

The land excitement was, however, less 
intense in North Carolina than in the Valley 
of Virginia and other mountain troughs to 
the north and northeast. At Boone's home 
there was unrest of a more serious character. 
The tax-gatherers were arousing great popu- 
lar discontent because of unlawful and ex- 
tortionate demands, and in some cases Gov- 
100 



The Hero of Clinch Valley 

ernor Tryon had come to blows with the 
regulators who stood for the people's rights. 

For two and a half years after his return 
Boone quietly conducted his little farm, and, 
as of old, made long hunting trips in autumn 
and winter, occasionally venturing — some- 
times alone, sometimes with one or two com- 
panions — far west into Kentucky, once visit- 
ing French Lick, on the Cumberland, where 
he found several French hunters. There is 
reason to believe that in 1772 he moved to 
the Watauga Valley, but after living there 
for a time went back to the Yadkin. Early 
in the following year he accompanied Benja- 
min Cutbirth and others as far as the pres- 
ent Jessamine County, Ky., and from this 
trip returned fired with quickened zeal for 
making a settlement in the new country. 

The spring and summer were spent in 
active preparations. He enlisted the co- 
operation of Captain William Russell, the 
principal pioneer in the Clinch Valley; sev- 
eral of the Bryans, whose settlement was 
now sixty-five miles distant, also agreed to 
join him; and five other families in his own 
neighborhood engaged to join the expedition. 
101 



Daniel Boone 

The Bryan party, numbering forty men, 
some of them from the Valley of Virginia 
and Powell's Valley, were not to be accom- 
panied by their families, as they preferred 
to go in advance and prepare homes before 
making a final move. But Boone and the 
other men of the upper Yadkin took with 
them their wives and children; most of 
them sold their farms, as did Boone, thus 
burning their bridges behind them. Arrang- 
ing to meet the Bryan contingent in Powell's 
Valley, Boone's, party left for the West upon 
the twenty-fifth of September, 1773— fifty- 
six years after old George Boone had de- 
parted from England for the Pennsylvania 
frontier near Philadelphia, and twenty-three 
after the family had set out for the new 
southwest frontier on the Yadkin. 

Reaching Powell's, Boone went into camp 
to await the rear party, his riding and pack- 
horses hoppled and belled, after the custom 
of such caravans, and their small herd of 
cattle properly guarded in a meadow. His 
eldest son, James, now a boy of sixteen 
years, was sent with two men, with pack- 
animals, across country to notify Russell and 
102 



The Hero of Clinch Valley 

to secure some flour and farming tools. 
They were returning laden, in company with 
BusselFs son Henry, a year older than 
James, two of Russell's negro slaves, and 
two or three white workpeople, when, miss- 
ing their path, they went into camp for the 
night only three miles from Boone's quarters. 
At daybreak they were attacked by a Shaw- 
nese war party and all killed except a white 
laborer and a negro. This pathetic tragedy 
created such consternation among the mov- 
ers that, despite Boone's entreaties to go for- 
ward, all of them returned to Virginia and 
Carolina. Daniel and his family, no longer 
having a home on the Yadkin, would not re- 
treat, and took up their quarters in an empty 
cabin upon the farm of Captain David Gass, 
seven or eight miles from Russell's, upon 
Clinch River. Throughout this sorrowful 
winter the Boones were supported from their 
stock of cattle and by means of Daniel's un- 
erring rifle. 

It was long before the intrepid pioneers 

could again take up their line of march. 

Ever since the Bouquet treaty of 1764 there 

had been more or less disturbance upon the 

103 



Daniel Boone 

frontiers. During all these years, although 
there was no open warfare between whites 
and reds, many scores of lives had been lost. 
Indians had wantonly plundered and mur- 
dered white men, and the latter had been 
quite as merciless toward the savages. 
Whenever a member of one race met a man 
of the other the rifle was apt to be at once 
brought into play. Meanwhile, armed par- 
ties of surveyors and land speculators were 
swarming into Kentucky, notching the trees 
for landmarks, and giving evidence to ap- 
prehensive tribesmen that the hordes of civ- 
ilization were upon them. In 1773 George 
Eogers Clark, afterward the most famous of 
border leaders, had staked a claim at the 
mouth of Fishing Creek, on the Ohio ; Wash- 
ington had, this summer, descended the river 
to the same point; while at the Falls of the 
Ohio, and upon interior waters of the Ken- 
tucky wilderness, other parties were laying 
ambitious plans for the capitals of new colo- 
nies. 

In the following spring the Cherokees and 
Shawnese, now wrought to a high pitch of ill 
temper, combined for onslaughts on the ad- 
104 



The Hero of Clinch Valley 

vancing frontiersmen. The wanton murder 
by border ruffians of Chief John Logan's 
family, near Mingo Junction, on the Ohio, 
was the match which, in early summer, fired 
the tinder. The Mingos, ablaze with the fire 
of vengeance, carried the war-pipe through 
the neighboring villages; runners were sent 
in every direction to rouse the tribes ; toma- 
hawks were unearthed, war-posts were plant- 
ed; messages of defiance were sent to the 
" Virginians," as all frontiersmen were gen- 
erally called by the Western Indians ; and in 
a few days the border war to which history 
has given the name of Lord Dunmore, then 
governor of Virginia, was in full swing from 
Cumberland Gap to Fort Pitt, from the Alle- 
ghanies to the Wabash. 

Its isolation at first protected the Valley 
of the Clinch. The commandant of the 
southwest militia — which comprised every 
boy or man capable of bearing arms — was 
Colonel William Preston; under him was 
Major Arthur Campbell; the principal man 
in the Clinch Valley was Boone's friend, 
Eussell. When, in June, the border captains 
were notified by Lord Dunmore that the war 
105 



Daniel Boone 

was now on, forts were erected in each of the 
mountain valleys, and scouts sent out along 
the trails and streams to ascertain the where- 
abouts of the enemy. 

There were in Kentucky, at this time, 
several surveying parties which could not 
obtain news by way of the Ohio because of 
the blockade maintained by the Shawnese. 
It became necessary to notify them overland, 
and advise their retreat to the settlements 
by way of Cumberland Gap. Russell having 
been ordered by Preston to employ " two 
faithful woodsmen " for this purpose, chose 
Daniel Boone and Michael Stoner. " If they 
are alive," wrote Russell to his colonel, "it 
is indisputable but Boone must find them." 
Leaving the Clinch on June twenty-seventh, 
the two envoys were at Harrodsburg before 
July eighth. There they found James Har- 
rod'and thirty- four other men laying off a 
large town,* in which they proposed to give 

* Previous to this there had been built in Kentucky many 
hunters' camps, also a few isolated cabins by "improvers"; 
but Harrodsburg (at first called " Harrodstown ") was the first 
permanent settlement, thus having nearly a year's start of 
Boonesborough. June 16, 1774, is the date given by Collins 
and other chroniclers for the actual settlement by Harrod. 
106 



The Hero of Clinch Valley 

each inhabitant a half -acre in-lot and a ten- 
acre out-lot. Boone, who had small capacity 
for business, but in land was something of a 
speculator, registered as a settler, and in 
company with a neighbor put up a cabin for 
his future occupancy. This done, he and 
Stoner hurried on down the Kentucky River 
to its mouth, and thence to the Falls of the 
Ohio (site of Louisville), notifying several 
bands of surveyors and town-builders of 
their danger. After an absence of sixty-one 
days they were back again upon the Clinch, 
having traveled eight hundred miles through 
a practically unbroken forest, experienced 
many dangers from Indians, and overcome 
natural difficulties almost without number. 

Meanwhile Lord Dunmore, personally un- 
popular but an energetic and competent mili- 
tary manager, had sent out an army of nearly 
three thousand backwoodsmen against the 
Shawnese north of the Ohio. One wing of 
this army, led by the governor himself, went 
by way of Fort Pitt and descended the Ohio ; 
among its members was George Rogers Clark. 
The other wing, commanded by General An- 
drew Lewis, included the men of the South- 
107 



Daniel Boone 

west, eleven hundred strong; they were 
to descend the Great Kanawha and rendez- 
vous with the northern wing at Point Pleas- 
ant, at the junction of the Kanawha and the 
Ohio. 

When Boone arrived upon the Clinch he 
found that Russell and most of the other mili- 
tiamen of the district had departed upon the 
campaign. With a party of recruits, the 
great hunter started out to overtake the ex- 
pedition, but was met by orders to return 
and aid in defending his own valley; for the 
drawing off of the militia by Dunmore had 
left the southwest frontiers in weak condi- 
tion. During September the settlers upon 
the Clinch suffered much apprehension; the 
depredations of the tribesmen were not nu- 
merous, but several men were either wound- 
ed or captured. 

In a letter written upon the sixth of Oc- 
tober, Major Campbell gives a list of forts 
upon the Clinch : " Blackmore's, sixteen men, 
Sergeant Moore commanding ; Moore's, twen- 
ty miles above, twenty men, Lieutenant 
Boone commanding; Russell's, four miles 
above, twenty men, Sergeant W. Poage com- 
108 



The Hero of Clinch Valley 

manding; Glade Hollow, twelve miles above, 
fifteen men, Sergeant John Dnnkin com- 
manding ; Elk Garden, fourteen miles above, 
eighteen men, Sergeant John Kinkead com- 
manding ; Maiden Spring, twenty-three miles 
above, five men, Sergeant John Crane com- 
manding; Whitton's Big Crab Orchard, 
twelve miles above, three men, Ensign John 
Campbell, of Eich Valley, commanding." 
During this month Boone and his little garri- 
son made frequent sallies against the enemy, 
and now and then fought brief but desperate 
skirmishes. He appears to have been by far 
the most active commander in the valley, and 
when neighboring forts were attacked his 
party of well-trained riflemen generally fur- 
nished the relief necessary to raise the siege. 
"Mr. Boone," writes Campbell to Preston, 
"is very diligent at Castle's-woods, and 
keeps up good order." His conduct is fre- 
quently alluded to in the military correspond- 
ence of that summer; Campbell and other 
leaders exhibited in their references to our 
hero a respectful and even deferential tone. 
An eye-witness of some of these stirring 
scenes has left us a description of Daniel 
109 



Daniel Boone 

Boone, now forty years of age, in which it is 
stated that his was then a familiar figure 
throughout the valley as he hurried to and 
fro upon his military duties " dressed in 
deerskin colored black, and his hair plaited 
and clubbed up." 

Upon the tenth of October, Cornstalk, a 
famous Shawnese chief, taking advantage of 
Dunmore's failure to join the southern wing, 
led against Lewis's little army encamped at 
Point Pleasant a thousand picked warriors 
gathered from all parts of the Northwest. 
Here, upon the wooded eminence at the junc- 
tion of the two rivers, was waged from dawn 
until dusk one of the most bloody and stub- 
born hand-to-hand battles ever fought be- 
tween Indians and whites. It is hard to say 
who displayed the best generalship, Corn- 
stalk or Lewis. The American savage was a 
splendid fighter ; although weak in discipline 
he could competently plan a battle. The tac- 
tics of surprise were his chief resource, and 
these are legitimate even in civilized war- 
fare; but he could also make a determined 
contest in the open, and when, as at Point 
Pleasant, the opposing numbers were nearly 
110 



The Hero of Clinch Valley 

equal, the result was often slow of determina- 
tion. Desperately courageous, pertinacious, 
with a natural aptitude for war combined 
with consummate treachery, cruelty, and cun- 
ning, it is small wonder that the Indian long 
offered a formidable barrier to the advance 
of civilization. In early Virginia, John 
Smith noticed that in Indian warfare the 
whites won at the expense of losses far be- 
yond those suffered by the tribesmen; and 
here at Point Pleasant, while the "Long 
Knives " * gained the day, the number of 
their dead and wounded was double that of 
the casualties sustained by Cornstalk's paint- 
ed band. 



* The Indians had called the Americans " Knifemen," 
"Long Knives," or "Big Knives," from the earliest historic 
times ; but it was not until about the middle of the eighteenth 
century that the Virginia colonists began to make record of 
the use of this epithet by the Indians with whom they came 
in contact. It was then commonly supposed that it grew out 
of the use of swords by the frontier militiamen, and this is the 
meaning still given in dictionaries ; but it has been made ap- 
parent by Albert Matthews, writing in the New York Nation, 
March 14, 1901, that the epithet originated in the fact that 
Englishmen used knives as distinguished from the early stone 
tools of the Indians. The French introduced knives into 
America previous to the English, but apparently the term was 
used only by Indians within the English sphere of influence. 
Ill 



Daniel Boone 

The victory at Point Pleasant practically 
closed the war upon the border. Boone had 
been made a captain in response to a popular 
petition that the hero of Clinch Valley be 
thus honored, and was given charge of the 
three lower forts; but there followed only 
a few alarms, and upon the twentieth of 
November he and his brother militiamen of 
the region received their discharge. The 
war had cost Virginia £10,000 sterling, many 
valuable lives had been sacrificed, and an in- 
calculable amount of suffering and privation 
had been occasioned all along the three hun- 
dred and fifty miles of American frontier. 
But the Shawnese had been humbled, the 
Cherokees had retired behind the new border 
line, and a lasting peace appeared to be 
assured. 

In the following January Captain Boone, 
true son of the wilderness, was celebrating 
his freedom from duties incident to war's 
alarms by a solitary hunt upon the banks of 
Kentucky River. 



112 



CHAPTER IX 

THE SETTLEMENT OF KENTUCKY 

Kentucky had so long been spasmodic- 
ally occupied and battled over by Shawnese, 
Iroquois, and Cherokees, that it can not be 
said that any of them had well-defined rights 
over its soil. Not until white men appeared 
anxious to settle there did the tribes begin 
to assert their respective claims, in the hope 
of gaining presents at the treaties whereat 
they were asked to make cessions. The 
whites, on their part, when negotiating for 
purchases, were well aware of the shadowy 
character of these claims; but, when armed 
with a signed deed of cession, they had some- 
thing tangible upon which thenceforth to 
base their own claims of proprietorship. 
There was therefore much insincerity upon 
both sides. It is well to understand this situ- 
ation in studying the history of Kentucky 
settlement. 

Colonel Richard Henderson was one of the 
9 113 



Daniel Boone 

principal judges in North Carolina, a schol- 
arly, talented man, eminent in the legal pro- 
fession; although but thirty-nine years of 
age, he wielded much influence. Knowing 
and respecting Daniel Boone, Henderson was 
much impressed by the former's enthusiastic 
reports concerning the soil, climate, and 
scenery of Kentucky ; and, acting solely upon 
this information, resolved to establish a col- 
ony in that attractive country. He associ- 
ated with himself three brothers, Nathaniel, 
David, and Thomas Hart, the last-named of 
whom in later life wrote that he " had known 
Boone of old, when poverty and distress held 
him fast by the hand; and in those wretched 
circumstances he had ever found him a noble 
and generous soul, despising everything 
mean." Their proposed colony was styled 
Transylvania, and the association of proprie- 
tors the Transylvania Company. 

It will be remembered that in the treaty 
of Fort Stanwix (1768) the Iroquois of New 
York had ceded to the English crown their 
pretensions to lands lying between the Ohio 
and the Tennessee. The Transylvania Com- 
pany, however, applied to the Cherokees, be- 
114 



The Settlement of Kentucky 

cause this was the tribe commanding the path 
from Virginia and the Carolinas to Kentucky. 
In March, 1775, a great council was held at 
Sycamore Shoals, on the Watauga River, be- 
tween the company and twelve hundred 
Cherokees who had been brought in for the 
purpose by Boone. For $50,000 worth of 
cloths, clothing, utensils, ornaments, and fire- 
arms, the Indians ceded to Henderson and 
his partners an immense grant including all 
the country lying between the Kentucky and 
Cumberland Rivers, also a path of approach 
from the east, through Powell's Valley. At 
this council were some of the most prominent 
Cherokee chiefs and southwestern frontiers- 
men. 

When the goods came to be distributed 
among the Indians it was found that, al- 
though they filled a large cabin and looked 
very tempting in bulk, there was but little 
for each warrior, and great dissatisfaction 
arose. One Cherokee, whose portion was a 
shirt, declared that in one day, upon this 
land, he could have killed deer enough to 
buy such a garment; to surrender his hunt- 
ing-ground for this trifle naturally seemed 
115 



Daniel Boone 

to him a bad bargain. For the safety of the 
pioneers the chiefs could give no guarantee; 
they warned Boone, who appears to have 
acted as spokesman for the company, that 
" a black cloud hung over this land," war- 
paths crossed it from north to south, and 
settlers would surely get killed; for such re- 
sults the Cherokees must not be held re- 
sponsible. 

This was not promising. Neither was 
the news, now received, that Governors 
Martin of North Carolina, and Dunmore 
of Virginia had both of them issued proc- 
lamations against the great purchase. The 
former had called Henderson and his part- 
ners an " infamous Company of Land 
Pyrates " ; and they were notified that this 
movement was in violation of the king's 
proclamation of 1763, forbidding Western 
settlements. 

The company, relying upon popular sym- 
pathy and their great distance from tide- 
water seats of government, proceeded with- 
out regard to these proclamations. Boone, 
at the head of a party of about thirty en- 
listed men, some of them the best backwoods- 
116 



The Settlement of Kentucky 

men in the country,* was sent ahead to mark 
a path through the forest to Kentucky River, 
and there establish a capital for the new 
colony. They encountered many difficulties, 
especially when traveling through cane- 
brakes and brush; and once, while asleep, 
were attacked by Indians, who killed a negro 
servant and wounded two of the party. 
Boone won hearty commendation for his skill 
and courage throughout the expedition, 
which finally arrived at its destination on the 
sixth of April. This was Big Lick, on Ken- 
tucky River, just below the mouth of Otter 
Creek. Here it was decided to build a town 



* The names of this party of Kentucky pioneers, as pre- 
served by tradition, are worth presenting in our record, for 
many of them afterward became prominent in the annals of 
the West: Squire Boone, Edward Bradley, James Bridges, 
William Bush, Samuel Coburn, Colonel Richard Calloway, 
Captain Crabtree, Benjamin Cutbirth, David Gass, John Hart, 
William Hays (son-in-law of Daniel Boone), William Hicks, 
Edmund Jennings, Thomas Johnson, John Kennedy, John 
King, William Miller, William Moore, James Nail, James 
Peeke, Bartlet Searcy, Reuben Searcy, Michael Stoner, Sam- 
uel Tate, Oswell Towns, Captain William Twitty (wounded at 
Rockcastle), John Vardeman, and Felix Walker (also wounded 
at Rockcastle). Mrs. Hays, Boone's daughter, traveled with 
her husband; a negro woman accompanied Calloway, and a 
negro man (killed at Rockcastle) was with Twitty. 

117 



Daniel Boone 

to be called Boonesborough, to serve as the 
capital of Transylvania. The site was " a 
plain on the south side of the river, wherein 
was a lick with sulphur springs strongly im- 
pregnated." 

To Felix Walker, one of the pioneers, we 
are indebted for the details of this notable 
colonizing expedition, set forth in a narra- 
tive which is still preserved. " On entering 
the plain," he writes, " we were permitted to 
view a very interesting and romantic sight. 
A number of buffaloes, of all sizes, supposed 
to be between two and three hundred, made 
off from the lick in every direction: some 
running, some walking, others loping slowly 
and carelessly, with young calves playing, 
skipping, and bounding through the plain. 
Such a sight some of us never saw before, 
nor perhaps ever may again." A fort was 
commenced, and a few cabins " strung along 
the river-bank ; " but it was long before the 
stronghold was completed, for, now that the 
journey was at an end, Boone's men had be- 
come callous to danger. 

Meanwhile Henderson was proceeding 
slowly from the settlements with thirty men 
118 



The Settlement of Kentucky 

and several wagons loaded with goods and 
tools. Delayed from many causes, they at 
last felt obliged to leave the encumbering 
wagons in Powell's Valley. Pushing for- 
ward, they were almost daily met by par- 
ties of men and boys returning home from 
Kentucky bearing vague reports of Indian 
forays. This resulted in Henderson losing 
many of his own followers from desertion. 
Arriving at Boonesborough on the twentieth 
of April, the relief party was " saluted by a 
running fire of about twenty-five guns." 
Some of Boone's men had, in the general 
uneasiness, also deserted, and others had 
scattered throughout the woods, hunting, 
exploring, or surveying on their own account. 
The method of surveying then in vogue 
upon the Western frontier was of the cru- 
dest, although it must be acknowledged that 
any system more formal might, at that stage 
of our country's growth, have prevented 
rapid settlement. Each settler or land specu- 
lator was practically his own surveyor. With 
a compass and a chain, a few hours' work 
would suffice to mark the boundaries of a 
thousand-acre tract. There were as yet no 
119 



Daniel Boone 

adequate maps of the country, and claims 
overlapped each other in the most bewilder- 
ing manner. A speculator who " ran out " 
a hundred thousand acres might, without 
knowing it, include in his domain a half- 
dozen claims previously surveyed by modest 
settlers who wanted but a hundred acres 
each. A man who paid the land-office fees 
might " patent " any land he pleased and 
have it recorded, the colony, and later the 
State, only guaranteeing such entries as cov- 
ered land not already patented. This over- 
lapping, conscious or unconscious, at last be- 
came so perplexing that thousands of vexa- 
tious lawsuits followed, some of which are 
still unsettled; and even to-day in Kentucky 
there are lands whose ownership is actually 
unknown, which pay no taxes and support 
only squatters who can not be turned out 
— possibly some of it, lying between patented 
tracts, by chance has never been entered at 
all. Nobody can now say. Thus it was 
that we find our friend Daniel Boone quick- 
ly transformed from a wilderness hunter 
into a frontier surveyor. Before Hender- 
son's arrival he had laid off the town site 
120 






(*rv 



+'&<££*■%&. ***** *** £ -■ *~£>ur?- 




2S5SSC 



A'/t-^H 




A SURVEY NOTE BY BOONE. 

Reduced facsimile from his field-books in possession of Wisconsin State 
Historical Society. 



The Settlement of Kentucky 

into lots of two acres each. These were now 
drawn at a public lottery; while those who 
wished larger tracts within the neighborhood 
were able to obtain them by promising to 
plant a crop of corn and pay to the Transyl- 
vania Company a quit-rent of two English 
shillings for each hundred acres. 

There were now four settlements in the 
Transylvania grant: Boonesborough; Har- 
rodsburg, fifty miles west, with about a hun- 
dred men ; Boiling Spring, some six or seven 
miles from Harrodsburg; and St. Asaph. 
The crown lands to the north and east of the 
Kentucky, obtained by the Fort Stanwix 
treaty, contained two small settlements ; 
forty miles north of Boonesborough was 
Hinkson's, later known as Buddell's Station, 
where were about nineteen persons; lower 
down the Kentucky, also on the north side, 
was Willis Lee's settlement, near the present 
Frankfort; and ranging at will through the 
crown lands were several small parties of 
"land-jobbers," surveyors, and explorers, 
laying off the claims of militia officers who 
had fought in the Indian wars, and here and 
there building cabins to indicate possession. 
121 



Daniel Boone 

Henderson had no sooner arrived than 
he prepared for a convention, at which the 
people should adopt a form of government 
for the colony and elect officers. This was 
held at Boonesborough, in the open air, under 
a gigantic elm, during the week commencing 
Tuesday, the twenty-third of May. There 
were eighteen delegates, representing each of 
the four settlements south of the Kentucky. 
Among them were Daniel and Squire Boone, 
the former of whom proposed laws for the 
preservation of game and for improving the 
breed of horses ; to the latter fell the presen- 
tation of rules for preserving the cattle- 
ranges. The compact finally agreed upon 
between the colonists and the proprietors 
declared " the powers of the one and the lib- 
erties of the others," and was " the earliest 
form of government in the region west of 
the Alleghanies." It provided for " perfect 
religious freedom and general toleration," 
militia and judicial systems, and complete 
liberty on the part of the settlers to conduct 
colonial affairs according to their needs. 
This liberal and well-digested plan appeared 
to please both Henderson and the settlers. 
122 



The Settlement of Kentucky 

But the opposition of the governors, the ob- 
jections raised by the Assembly of Virginia, 
of which Kentucky was then a part,* and 
finally, the outbreak of the Revolution, which 
put an end to proprietary governments in 
America, caused the downfall of the Transyl- 
vania Company. The Boonesborough leg- 
islative convention met but once more — in 
December, to elect a surveyor-general. 

The May meeting had no sooner ad- 
journed than Transylvania began again to 
lose its population. Few of the pioneers 
who had come out with Boone and Hender- 
son, or had since wandered into the district, 
were genuine home-seekers. Many appear 
to have been mere adventurers, out for the 
excitement of the expedition and to satisfy 
their curiosity, who either returned home or 
wandered farther into the woods to seek 
fresh experiences of wild life; others had 
deliberately intended first to stake out claims 
in the neighborhood of the new settlements 
and then return home to look after their 

* It was then within the far-stretching boundaries of Fin- 
castle County. Kentucky was set apart as a county, Decem- 
ber 31, 1776. 

123 



Daniel Boone 

crops, and perhaps move to Kentucky in the 
autumn ; others there were who, far removed 
from their families, proved restless; while 
many became uneasy because of Indian out- 
rages, reports of which soon began to be circu- 
lated. Henderson wrote cheerful letters to 
his partners at home, describing the country 
as a paradise ; but by the end of June, when 
Boone returned to the East for salt, Har- 
rodsburg and Boiling Spring were almost 
deserted, while Boonesborough could muster 
but ten or twelve " guns," as men or boys 
capable of fighting Indians were called in 
the militia rolls. 

The infant colony of Kentucky had cer- 
tainly reached a crisis in its career. Game 
was rapidly becoming more scarce, largely 
because of careless, inexperienced hunters 
who wounded more than they killed, and 
killed more than was needed for food; the 
frightened buffaloes had now receded so far 
west that they were several days' journey 
from Boonesborough. Yet game was still the 
staff of life. Captain Floyd, the surveyor- 
general, wrote to Colonel Preston : " I must 
hunt or starve." 

124 



The Settlement of Kentucky 

As the summer wore away and crops in the 
Eastern settlements were gathered, there was 
a considerable increase in the population. 
Many men who, in later days, were to exert 
a powerful influence in Kentucky now ar- 
rived — George Kogers Clark, the principal 
Western hero of the Eevolution; Simon 
Kenton, famous throughout the border as 
hunter, scout, and Indian fighter; Benjamin 
Logan, William Whitley, the Lewises, Camp- 
bells, Christians, Prestons, MacDowells, Mc- 
Afees, Hite, Bowman, Randolph, Todd, Mc- 
Clellan, Benton, Patterson— all of them 
names familiar in Western history. 

In the first week of September Boone ar- 
rived with his wife and family and twenty 
young men — " twenty-one guns," the report 
reads ; Squire and his family soon followed ; 
four Bryans, their brothers-in-law, came at 
the head of thirty men from the Yadkin ; and, 
at the same time, Harrodsburg was reached 
by several other families who had, like the 
Boones, come on horseback through Cumber- 
land Gap and Powell's Valley. This power- 
ful reenforcement of pioneers, most of whom 
proposed to stay, had largely been attracted 
125 



Daniel Boone 

by Henderson's advertisements in Virginia 
newspapers offering terms of settlement on 
Transylvania lands. "Any person," said 
the announcement, " who will settle on and 
inhabit the same before the first day of June, 
1776, shall have the privilege of taking up 
and surveying for himself live hundred acres, 
and for each tithable person he may carry 
with him and settle there, two hundred and 
fifty acres, on the payment of fifty shillings 
sterling per hundred, subject to a yearly 
quit-rent of two shillings, like money, to com- 
mence in the year 1780." Toward the end 
of November Henderson himself, who had 
gone on a visit to Carolina, returned with 
forty men, one of whom was Colonel Arthur 
Campbell, a prominent settler in the Holston 
Valley. 

This increase of population, which had 
been noticeable throughout the autumn and 
early winter, received a sudden check, how- 
ever, two days before Christmas, when the 
Indians, who had been friendly for several 
months past, began again to annoy settlers, 
several being either killed or carried into 
captivity. This gave rise to a fresh panic, 
126 



The Settlement of Kentucky 

in the course of which many fled to the east 
of the mountains. 

During the year about five hundred per- 
sons from the frontiers of Pennsylvania, 
Virginia, and North Carolina had visited and 
explored Kentucky; but now, at the close of 
December, the population of all the settle- 
ments did not aggregate over two hundred. 
The recent outbreak had much to do with 
this situation of affairs ; but there were other 
causes conspiring to disturb the minds of 
the people and postpone the growth of set- 
tlement — the clashing of interests between 
the Transylvania Company and the govern- 
ors of Virginia and North Carolina, uncer- 
tainty as to the possibilities of a general In- 
dian war, the threatened rupture between the 
colonies and the English crown, and the 
alarming scarcity of provisions and ammuni- 
tion throughout Kentucky. 

Nevertheless, over nine hundred entries 
had been made in the Transylvania land- 
office at Boonesborough, embracing 560,000 
acres, and most of these tracts were waiting 
to be surveyed ; two hundred and thirty acres 
of corn had been successfully raised ; horses, 
127 



Daniel Boone 

hogs, and poultry had been introduced, and 
apple- and peach-trees had been started at 
several settlements. The germ of a colony 
was firmly planted, laws had been made, 
the militia had been organized, civil and mili- 
tary officers had been commissioned, and in 
the face of several slight Indian attacks the 
savages had been repelled and the country 
maintained. Most promising of all, there 
were now twelve women in the country, all 
of them heads of families. 

The principal pioneers were nearly all of 
sturdy Scotch-Irish blood, men of sterling 
merit, intensely devoted to the cause of 
American liberty, and destined to contribute 
powerfully to its aid in the great war which 
had now begun, and concerning which mes- 
sengers from over the mountains had during 
the year brought them scanty information. 



128 



CHAPTER X 

TWO YEARS OP DARKNESS 

With the opening of the year 1776 Daniel 
and Squire Boone were employed for several 
weeks as hunters or assistants to a party of 
surveyors sent by the Transylvania Com- 
pany to the Falls of the Ohio, in the vicinity 
of which Henderson and his friends had 
taken up seventy thousand acres of land. 
They met no Indians and saw plenty of 
game; but returned to find that the settlers 
were indignant because of this wholesale pre- 
emption by the proprietors of the colony in 
a neighborhood where it was now felt the 
chief city in Kentucky was sure to be planted. 
In response to this clamor Henderson prom- 
ised that hereafter, in that locality, only 
small tracts should be granted to individuals, 
and that a town should at once be laid out 
at the Falls ; but the scanty supply of powder 
and provisions, and the company's growing 
10 129 



Daniel Boone 

troubles with the Virginia Assembly, pre- 
vented the execution of this project. 

In the spring newcomers everywhere ap- 
peared. In order to please the people of 
Harrodsburg, now the largest settlement, 
who were disposed to be critical, the com- 
pany's land-office was moved thither, and it 
at once entered upon a flourishing business. 
Not only did many Virginians and Carolin- 
ians come in on horseback over the " Wilder- 
ness Koad," as the route through Cumber- 
land Gap was now styled, but hundreds also 
descended the Ohio in boats from the new 
settlements on the Monongahela, and from 
those farther east in Pennsylvania. 

While the horsemen of the Wilderness 
Eoad generally settled in Transylvania, 
those journeying by boat were chiefly inter- 
ested in the crown lands north of the Ken- 
tucky; through these they ranged at will, 
building rude pens, half-faced cabins, and 
log huts, as convenience dictated, and plant- 
ing small crops of corn in order to preempt 
their claims. The majority, however, after 
making sometimes as many as twenty such 
claims each, often upon land already sur- 
130 



Two Years of Darkness 

veyed on militia officers' warrants, returned 
home at the close of the season, seeking to 
sell their fictitious holdings to actual settlers. 
Of course the unscrupulous conduct of these 
" claim-jumping " speculators led to numer- 
ous quarrels. John Todd, of Harrodsburg, 
wrote to a friend : " I am afraid to lose sight 
of my house lest some invader should take 
possession." 

It was difficult, even for those who came 
to settle, to get down to hard work during 
those earliest years. Never was there a 
more beautiful region than the Kentucky 
wilderness. Both old and new settlers were 
fond of roaming through this wonderland of 
forests and glades and winding rivers, 
where the nights were cool and refreshing 
and the days filled with harmonies of sound 
and sight and smell. Hill and valley, timber- 
land and thicket, meadow and prairie, grass- 
lands and cane-brake — these abounded on 
every hand, in happy distribution of light 
and shadow. The soil was extremely fertile ; 
there were many open spots fitted for im- 
mediate cultivation; the cattle-ranges were 
of the best, for nowhere was cane more 
131 



Daniel Boone 

abundant; game was more plentiful than 
men's hopes had ever before conceived — of 
turkeys, bears, deer, and buffaloes it seemed, 
for a time, as if the supply must always far 
excelled any possible demand. It is small 
wonder that the imaginations of the pioneers 
were fired with dreams of the future, that 
they saw in fancy great cities springing up 
in this new world of the West, and wealth 
pouring into the laps of those who could first 
obtain a foothold. Thus, in that beautiful 
spring of 1776, did Kentuckians revel in the 
pleasures of hope, and cast to the winds all 
thought of the peril and toil by which alone 
can man conquer a savage-haunted wilder- 
ness. 

But the " dark cloud " foretold at the Wa- 
tauga treaty soon settled upon the land. In- 
cited by British agents — for the Revolution 
was now on — the Cherokees on the south and 
the Shawnese and Mingos on the north de- 
clared war upon the American borderers. 
The Kentuckians were promptly warned by 
messengers from the East. The " cabiners," 
as claim speculators were called by actual 
settlers; the wandering fur-traders, most of 
132 



Two Years of Darkness 

whom were shabby rascals, whose example 
corrupted the savages, and whose conduct 
often led to outbreaks of race hostility; and 
the irresponsible hunters, who were reck- 
lessly killing or frightening off the herds of 
game — all of these classes began, with the 
mutterings of conflict, to draw closer to the 
settlements ; while many hurried back to their 
old homes, carrying exaggerated reports of 
the situation. 

Meanwhile, opposition to the Transyl- 
vania proprietors was fast developing. The 
settlers in the Harrodsburg neighborhood 
held a convention in June and sent Colonel 
George Rogers Clark and Captain John Ga- 
briel Jones as delegates to the Virginia Con- 
vention with a petition to that body to make 
Kentucky a county of Virginia. This project 
was bitterly opposed by Henderson; but 
upon the adoption by Congress, in July, of 
the Declaration of Independence, there was 
small chance left for the recognition of any 
proprietary government. When the new 
Virginia legislature met in the autumn, the 
petition of the " inhabitants of Kentuckie " 
was granted, and a county government or- 
133 



Daniel Boone 

ganized.* David Robinson was appointed 
county lieutenant, John Bowman colonel, An- 
thony Bledsoe and George Rogers Clark ma- 
jors, and Daniel Boone, James Harrod, John 
Todd, and Benjamin Logan captains. 

It was not until July that the Kentuckians 
fully realized the existence of an Indian war. 
During that month several hunters, survey- 
ors, and travelers were killed in various parts 
of the district. The situation promised so 
badly that Colonel William Russell, of the 
Holston Valley, commandant of the south- 
western Virginia militia, advised the immedi- 
ate abandonment of Kentucky. Such advice 
fell upon unheeding ears in the case of men 
like Boone and his companions, although 
many of the less valorous were quick to re- 
tire beyond the mountains. 

On Sunday, the seventeenth of July, 
an incident occurred at Boonesborough which 
created wide-spread consternation. Jemima, 
the second daughter of Daniel Boone, aged 
fourteen years, together with two girl 

* It was, however, not until November, 1778, that the 
legislature formally declared the Transylvania Company's 
claims null and void. 

134 



Two Years of Darkness 

friends, Betsey and Fanny Calloway, sixteen 
and fourteen respectively, were paddling in 
a canoe upon the Kentucky. Losing control 
of their craft in the swift current, not over 
a quarter of a mile from the settlement, they 
were swept near the north bank, when five 
Shawnese braves, hiding in the bushes, wa- 
ded out and captured them. The screams of 
the girls alarmed the settlers, who sallied 
forth in hot pursuit of the kidnappers. 

The mounted men, under Colonel Callo- 
way, father of two of the captives, pushed 
forward to Lower Blue Licks, hoping to cut 
off the Indians as they crossed the Licking 
River on their way to the Shawnese towns 
in Ohio, whither it was correctly supposed 
they were fleeing. Boone headed the foot- 
men, who followed closely on the trail of the 
fugitives, which had been carefully marked 
by the girls, who, with the self-possession 
of true borderers, furtively scattered broken 
twigs and scraps of clothing as they were 
hurried along through the forest by their 
grim captors. After a two days' chase, 
Boone's party caught up with the unsuspect- 
ing savages some thirty-five miles from 
135 



Daniel Boone 

Boonesborough, and by dint of a skilful dash 
recaptured the young women, unharmed. 
Two of the Shawnese were killed and the 
others fled into the woods. Calloway's 
horsemen met no foe. 

Although few other attacks were reported 
during the summer or autumn, the people 
were in a continual state of apprehension, 
neglected their crops, and either huddled in 
the neighborhood of the settlements, or 
" stations " as they were called, or aban- 
doned the country altogether. In the midst 
of this uneasiness Floyd wrote to his friend 
Preston, in Virginia, urging that help be sent 
to the distressed colony : " They all seem 
deaf to anything we can say to dissuade 
them. ... I think more than three hundred 
men have left the country since I came out, 
and not one has arrived, except a few cabiners 
down the Ohio. I want to return as much 
as any man can do; but if I leave the coun- 
try now there is scarcely one single man 
who will not follow the example. When I 
think of the deplorable condition a few 
helpless families are likely to be in, I con- 
clude to sell my life as dearly as I can in 
136 




3-§ 



Is 5 



Two Years of Darkness 

their defense rather than make an ignomin- 
ious escape." 

Seven stations had now been abandoned 
— Huston's, on the present site of Paris; 
Hinkson's, on the Licking; Bryan's, on the 
Elkhorn; Lee's, on the Kentucky; Harrod's, 
or the Boiling Spring settlement; Whitley's, 
and Logan's. But three remained occupied 
— McClellan's, Harrodsburg, and Boonesbor- 
ough. Up to this time none of the Kentucky 
stations had been fortified; there had been 
some unfinished work at Boonesborough, but 
it was soon allowed to fall into decay. Work 
was now resumed at all three of the occupied 
settlements ; this consisted simply of connect- 
ing the cabins, which faced an open square, 
by lines of palisades. It was only at Mc- 
Clellan's, however, that even this slender 
protection was promptly completed; at 
Boonesborough and Harrodsburg the work, 
although but a task of a few days, dragged 
slowly, and was not finished for several 
months. It was next to impossible for Boone 
and the other militia captains to induce men 
to labor at the common defenses in time of 
peace. 

137 



\ 

Daniel Boone 

Great popular interest was taken by the 
people of the Carolinas, Virginia, and Penn- 
sylvania in the fate of the Kentucky settle- 
ments, whither so many prominent borderers 
from those States had moved. The frantic 
appeals for help sent out by Floyd, Logan, 
and McGary, and expressed in person by 
George Rogers Clark, awakened keen sym- 
pathy; but the demands of Washington's 
army were now so great, in battles for national 
liberty upon the Atlantic coast, that little 
could be spared for the Western settlers. 
During the summer a small supply of powder 
was sent out by Virginia to Captain Boone ; 
in the autumn Harrod and Logan rode to 
the Holston and obtained from the military 
authorities a packhorse-load of lead; and in 
the closing days of the year Clark arrived 
at Limestone (now Maysville), on the Ohio, 
with a boat-load of powder and other stores, 
voted to the service of Kentucky by the Vir- 
ginia Assembly. He had experienced a long 
and exciting voyage from Pittsburg with this 
precious consignment, and about thirty of 
the settlers aided him in the perilous enter- 
prise of transporting it overland to the sta- 
138 



Two Years of Darkness 

tions on the Kentucky. While the ammuni- 
tion was supposed to be used for defense, 
the greater part of it was necessarily spent 
in obtaining food. Without the great pro- 
fusion of game the inhabitants must have 
starved ; although several large crops of corn 
were raised, and some wheat, these were as 
yet insufficient for all. 

Early in 1777 Indian " signs " began to 
multiply. McClelland was now abandoned, 
leaving Boonesborough and Harrodsburg 
the only settlements maintained — except, per- 
haps, Price's, on the Cumberland, although 
Logan's Station was reoccupied in Febru- 
ary. The number of men now in the coun- 
try fit for duty did not exceed a hundred 
and fifty. In March the fighting men met at 
their respective stations and organized under 
commissioned officers; hitherto all military 
operations in Kentucky had been voluntary, 
headed by such temporary leaders as the 
men chose from their own number. 

During the greater part of the year the 

palisaded stations were frequently attacked 

by the savages — Shawnese, Cherokees, and 

Mingos, in turn or in company. Some of 

139 



Daniel Boone 

these sieges lasted through several days, 
taxing the skill and bravery of the inhabit- 
ants to their utmost. Indian methods of at- 
tacking forts were far different from those 
that would be practised by white men. Being 
practically without military organization, 
each warrior acted largely on his own behalf. 
His object was to secrete himself, to kill his 
enemy, and if possible to bear away his scalp 
as a trophy. Every species of cover was 
taken advantage of — trees, stumps, bushes, 
hillocks, stones, furnished hiding-places. 
Feints were made to draw the attention of 
the garrison to one side, while the main body 
of the besiegers hurled themselves against 
the other. Having neither artillery nor scal- 
ing-ladders, they frequently succeeded in 
effecting a breach by setting fire to the walls. 
Pretending to retreat, they would lull the de- 
fenders into carelessness, when they would 
again appear from ambush, picking off those 
who came out for water, to attend to crops 
and cattle, or to hunt for food ; often they ex- 
hibited a remarkable spirit of daring, espe- 
cially when making a dash to secure scalps. 
Destroying crops, cattle, hogs, and poultry, 
140 



Two Years of Darkness 

stealing the horses for their own use, burning 
the outlying cabins, and guarding the trails 
against possible relief, they sought to reduce 
the settlers to starvation, and thus make 
them an easy prey. Every artifice known 
to besiegers was skilfully practised by these 
crafty, keen-eyed, quick-witted wilderness 
fighters, who seldom showed mercy. Only 
when white men aggressively fought them 
in their own manner could they be over- 
come. 

In the last week of April, while Boone 
and Kenton were heading a sortie against a 
party of Shawnese besieging Boonesborough, 
the whites stumbled into an ambuscade, and 
Boone was shot in an ankle, the bone being 
shattered. Kenton, with that cool bravery 
for which this tall, vigorous backwoodsman 
was known throughout the border, rushed up, 
and killing a warrior whose tomahawk was 
lifted above the fallen man, picked his com- 
rade up in his arms, and desperately fought 
his way back into the enclosure. It was sev- 
eral months before the captain recovered 
from this painful wound ; but from his room 
he directed many a day-and-night defense, 
141 



Daniel Boone 

and laid plans for the scouting expeditions 
which were frequently undertaken through- 
out the region in order to discover signs of 
the lurking foe. 

Being the larger settlement, Harrodsburg 
was more often attacked than Boonesbor- 
ough, although simultaneous sieges were 
sometimes in progress, thus preventing the 
little garrisons from helping each other. At 
both stations the women soon became the 
equal of the men, fearlessly taking turns at 
the port-holes, from which little puffs of 
white smoke would follow the sharp rifle- 
cracks whenever a savage head revealed 
itself from behind bush or tree. When not 
on duty as marksmen, women were melting 
their pewter plates into bullets, loading the 
rifles and handing them to the men, caring 
for the wounded, and cooking whatever food 
might be obtainable. During a siege food 
was gained only by stealth and at great 
peril. Some brave volunteer would escape 
into the woods by night, and after a day spent 
in hunting, far away from hostile camps, re- 
turn, if possible under cover of darkness, 
with what game he could find. It was a time 
142 



Two Years of Darkness 

to make heroes or cowards of either men or 
women — there was no middle course. 

Amid this spasmodic hurly-burly there 
was no lack of marrying and giving in mar- 
riage. One day in early August, 1776, Bet- 
sey Calloway, the eldest of the captive girls, 
was married at Boonesborough to Samuel 
Henderson, one of the rescuing party — the 
first wedding in Kentucky. Daniel Boone, 
as justice of the peace, tied the knot. A 
diarist of the time has this record of a similar 
Harrodsburg event : " July 9, 1777. — Lieu- 
tenant Linn married — great merriment." 

At each garrison, whenever not under 
actual siege, half of the men were acting as 
guards and scouts while the others cultivated 
small patches of corn within sight of the 
walls. But even this precaution sometimes 
failed of its purpose. For instance, one day 
in May two hundred Indians suddenly sur- 
rounded the corn-field at Boonesborough, 
and there was a lively skirmish before the 
planters could reach the fort. 

Thus the summer wore away. In August 
Colonel Bowman arrived with a hundred 
militiamen from the Virginia frontier. A 
143 



Daniel Boone 

little later forty-eight horsemen came from 
the Yadkin country to Boone's relief, making 
so brave a display as they emerged from the 
tangled woods and in open order filed 
through the gates of the palisade, that some 
Shawnese watching the procession from a 
neighboring hill fled into Ohio with the start- 
ling report that two hundred Long Knife 
warriors had arrived from Virginia. In Oc- 
tober other Virginians came, to the extent 
of a hundred expert riflemen; and late in 
the autumn the valiant Logan brought in 
from the Holston as much powder and lead 
as four packhorses could carry, guarded by 
a dozen sharpshooters, thus insuring a better 
prospect for food. 

With these important supplies and reen- 
f orcements at hand the settlers were inspired 
by new hope. Instead of waiting for the 
savages to attack them, they thenceforth 
went in search of the savages, killing them 
wherever seen, thus seeking to outgeneral 
the enemy. These tactics quite disheartened 
the astonished tribesmen, and the year closed 
with a brighter outlook for the weary Ken- 
tuckians. It had been a time of constant 
144 



Two Years of Darkness 

anxiety and watchfulness. The settlers were 
a handful in comparison with their vigilant 
enemies. But little corn had been raised; 
the cattle were practically gone; few horses 
were now left; and on the twelfth of De- 
cember Bowman sent word to Virginia that 
he had only two months , supply of bread 
for two hundred women and children, many 
of whom were widows and orphans. As for 
clothing, there was little to be had, although 
from the fiber of nettles a rude cloth was 
made, and deerskins were commonly worn. 



11 145 



CHAPTER XI 

THE SIEGE OF BOONESBOROUGH 

We have seen that Kentucky's numerous 
salt-springs lured wild animals thither in as- 
tonishing numbers; but for lack of suitable 
boiling-kettles the pioneers were at first de- 
pendent upon the older settlements for the 
salt needed in curing their meat. The In- 
dian outbreak now rendered the Wilderness 
Eoad an uncertain path, and the Kentuckians 
were beginning to suffer from lack of salt — 
a serious deprivation for a people largely 
dependent upon a diet of game. 

Late in the year 1777 the Virginia gov- 
ernment sent out several large salt-boiling 
kettles for the use of the Western settlers. 
Both residents and visiting militiamen were 
allotted into companies, which were to relieve 
each other at salt-making until sufficient was 
manufactured to last the several stations for 
a year. It was Boone's duty to head the first 
party, thirty strong, which, with the kettles 
146 



The Siege of Boonesborough 

packed on horses, went to Lower Blue Licks 
early in January. A month passed, during 
which a considerable quantity of salt was 
made; several horse-loads had been sent to 
Boonesborough, but most of it was still at 
the camp awaiting shipment. 

The men were daily expecting relief by 
the second company, when visitors of a dif- 
ferent character appeared. While half of 
the men worked at the boiling, the others 
engaged in the double service of watching 
for Indians and obtaining food ; of these was 
Boone. Toward evening of the seventh of 
February he was returning home from a 
wide circuit with his packhorse laden with 
buffalo-meat and some beaver-skins, for he 
had many traps in the neighborhood. A 
blinding snow-storm was in progress, which 
caused him to neglect his usual precautions, 
when suddenly he was confronted by four 
burly Shawnese, who sprang from an am- 
bush. Keen of foot, he thought to outrun 
them, but soon had to surrender, for they 
shot so accurately that it was evident that 
they could kill him if they would. 

The prisoner was conducted to the Shaw- 
147 



Daniel Boone 

nese camp, a few miles distant. There he 
found a hundred and twenty warriors under 
Chief Black Fish. Two Frenchmen, in Eng- 
lish employ, were of the p>arty; also two 
American renegades from the Pittsburg re- 
gion, James and George Girty. These latter, 
with their brother Simon, had joined the In- 
dians and, dressed and painted like savages, 
were assisting the tribesmen of the North- 
west in raids against their fellow-borderers 
of Pennsylvania and Virginia. Boone was 
well known by reputation to all these men 
of the wilderness, reds and whites alike; in- 
deed, he noticed that among the party were 
his captors of eight years before, who 
laughed heartily at again having him in their 
clutches. 

He was loudly welcomed to camp, the In- 
dians shaking his hands, patting him on the 
back, and calling him " brother " — for they 
always greatly enjoyed such exhibitions of 
mock civility and friendship — and the hunter 
himself pretended to be equally pleased at 
the meeting. They told him that they were 
on their way to attack Boonesborough, and 
wished him to lead them, but insisted that 
148 



The Siege of Boonesborough 

he first induce his fellow salt-makers to sur- 
render. Boone thoroughly understood In- 
dians; he had learned the arts of forest 
diplomacy, and although generally a silent 
man of action, appears to have been a plaus- 
ible talker when dealing with red men. 
Knowing that only one side of the Boones- 
borough palisade had been completed, and 
that the war-party was five times as strong 
as the population of the hamlet, he thought 
to delay operations by strategy. He prom- 
ised to persuade the salt-makers to surren- 
der, in view of the overwhelming force and 
the promise of good treatment, and to go 
peacefully with their captors to the Shaw- 
nese towns north of the Ohio ; and suggested 
that in the spring, when the weather was 
warmer, they could all go together to 
Boonesborough, and by means of horses com- 
fortably remove the women and children. 
These would, under his persuasion, Boone 
assured his captors, be content to move to 
the North, and thenceforth either lived with 
the Shawnese as their adopted children or 
place themselves under British protection at 
Detroit, where Governor Hamilton offered 
149 



Daniel Boone 

£20 apiece for American prisoners delivered 
to him alive and well. 

The proposition appeared reasonable to 
the Indians, and they readily agreed to it. 
.What would be the outcome Boone could not 
foretell. He realized, however, that his sta- 
tion was unprepared, that delay meant every- 
thing, in view of possible reenforcements 
from Virginia, and was willing that he and 
his comrades should stand, if need be, as a 
sacrifice — indeed, no other course seemed 
open. Going with his captors to the salt 
camp, his convincing words caused the men 
to stack their arms and accompany the sav- 
ages, hoping thereby at least to save their 
families at Boonesborough from immediate 
attack. 

The captives were but twenty-seven in 
number, some of the hunters not having re- 
turned to camp. Not all of the captors were, 
despite their promise, in favor of lenient 
treatment of the prisoners. A council was 
held, at which Black Fish, a chieftain of fine 
qualities, had much difficulty, through a ses- 
sion of two hours, in securing a favorable 
verdict. Boone was permitted to address 
150 



The Siege of Boonesborough 

the savage throng in explanation of his plan, 
his words being interpreted by a negro 
named Pompey, a fellow of some conse- 
quence among the Shawnese. The vote was 
close — fifty-nine for at once killing the pris- 
oners, except Boone, and sixty-one for 
mercy; but it was accepted as decisive, and 
the store of salt being destroyed, and ket- 
tles, guns, axes, and other plunder packed on 
horses, the march northward promptly com- 
menced. 

Each night the captives were made fast 
and closely watched. The weather was un- 
usually severe; there was much suffering 
from hunger, for the snow was deep, game 
scarce, and slippery-elm bark sometimes the 
only food obtainable. Descending the Lick- 
ing, the band crossed the Ohio in a large boat 
made of buffalo-hides, which were stretched 
on a rude frame holding twenty persons; 
they' then entered the trail leading to the 
Shawnese towns on the Little Miami, where 
they arrived upon the tenth day. 

The prisoners were taken to the chief 
town of the Shawnese, Little Chillicothe, 
about three miles north of the present Xenia, 
151 



Daniel Boone 

Ohio. There was great popular rejoicing, 
for not since Braddock's defeat had so many 
prisoners been brought into Ohio. Boone 
and sixteen of his companions, presumably 
selected for their good qualities and their 
apparent capacity as warriors, were now 
formally adopted into the tribe. Boone him- 
self had the good fortune to be accepted as 
the son of Black Fish, and received the name 
Sheltowee (Big Turtle) — perhaps because he 
was strong and compactly built. 

Adoption was a favorite method of re- 
cruiting the ranks of American tribes. The 
most tractable captives were often taken into 
the families of the captors to supply the 
place of warriors killed in battle. They 
were thereafter treated with the utmost af- 
fection, apparently no difference being made 
between them and actual relatives, save that, 
until it was believed that they were no longer 
disposed to run away, they were watched 
with care to prevent escape. Such was now 
Boone's experience. Black Fish and his 
squaw appeared to regard their new son with 
abundant love, and everything was done for 
his comfort, so far as was possible in an 
152 



The Siege of Boonesborough 

Indian camp, save that he found himself 
carefully observed by day and night, and 
flight long seemed impracticable. 

Boone was a shrewd philosopher. In his 
so-called " autobiography " written by Fil- 
son, he tells us that the food and lodging were 
"not so good as I could desire, but neces- 
sity made everything acceptable." Such as 
he obtained was, however, the lot of all. In 
the crowded, slightly built wigwams it was 
impossible to avoid drafts; they were filthy 
to the last degree ; when in the home villages, 
there was generally an abundance of food — 
corn, hominy, pumpkins, beans, and game, 
sometimes all boiled together in the same ket- 
tle — although it was prepared in so slovenly 
a manner as to disgust even so hardy a man 
of the forest as our hero ; the lack of privacy, 
the ever-present insects, the blinding smoke 
of the lodge-fire, the continual yelping of 
dogs, and the shrill, querulous tones of old 
women, as they haggled and bickered through 
the livelong day — all these and many other 
discomforts were intensely irritating to most 
white men. In order to disarm suspicion, 
Boone appeared to be happy. He whistled 
153 



Daniel Boone 

cheerfully at his tasks, learning what little 
there was left for him to learn of the arts 
of the warrior, sharing his game with his 
" father," and pretending not to see that he 
was being watched. At the frequent shoot- 
ing-matches he performed just well enough to 
win the applause of his fellow braves, al- 
though, for fear of arousing jealousy, careful 
not to outdo the best of them. His fellow 
prisoners, less tactful, marveled at the ease 
with which their old leader adapted himself 
to the new life, and his apparent enjoyment 
of it. Yet never did he miss an opportunity 
to ascertain particulars of the intended attack 
on Boonesborough, and secretly planned for 
escape when the proper moment should ar- 
rive. 

March was a third gone, when Black Fish 
and a large party of his braves and squaws 
went to Detroit to secure Governor Hamil- 
ton's bounty on those of the salt-makers who, 
from having acted in an ugly manner, had 
not been adopted into the tribe. Boone ac- 
companied his " father," and frequently wit- 
nessed, unable to interfere, the whipping and 
" gauntlet-running " to which his unhappy 
154 



The Siege of Boonesborough 

fellow Kentuckians were subjected in punish- 
ment for their fractious behavior. He him- 
self, early in his captivity, had been forced 
to undergo this often deadly ordeal; but by 
taking a dodging, zigzag course, and freely 
using his head as a battering-ram to topple 
over some of the warriors in the lines, had 
emerged with few bruises.* 

Upon the arrival of the party at Detroit 
Governor Hamilton at once sent for the now 
famous Kentucky hunter and paid him many 
attentions. With the view of securing his 
liberty, the wily forest diplomat used the 
same sort of duplicity with the governor that 
had proved so effective with Black Fish. It 
was his habit to carry a leather bag fastened 
about his neck, containing his old commission 
as captain in the British colonial forces, 
signed by Lord Dunmore. This was for the 

* Two lines of Indians were formed, five or six feet apart, 
on either side of a marked path. The prisoner was obliged to 
run between these lines, while there were showered upon him 
lusty blows from whatever weapons the tormentors chose to 
adopt — switches, sticks, clubs, and tomahawks. It required 
great agility, speed in running, and some aggressive strategy 
to arrive at the goal unharmed. Many white captives were 
seriously crippled in this thrilling experience, and not a few 
lost their lives. 

155 



Daniel Boone 

purpose of convincing Indians, into whose 
hands he might fall, that he was a friend of 
the king; which accounts in a large measure 
for the tender manner in which they treated 
him. Showing the document to Hamilton as 
proof of his devotion to the British cause, 
he appears to have repeated his promise that 
he would surrender the people of Boonesbor- 
ough and conduct them to Detroit, to live 
under British jurisdiction and protection. 
This greatly pleased the governor, who 
sought to ransom him from Black Fish for 
£100. But to this his "father" would not 
agree, stating that he loved him too strong- 
ly to let him go — as a matter of fact, he 
wished his services as guide for the Boones- 
borough expedition. Upon leaving for home, 
Hamilton presented Boone with a pony, sad- 
dle, bridle, and blanket, and a supply of sil- 
ver trinkets to be used as currency among 
the Indians, and bade him remember his duty 
to the king. 

Keturning to Chillicothe with Black Fish, 

the hunter saw that preparations for the 

spring invasion of Kentucky were at last 

under way. Delawares, Mingos, and Shaw- 

156 



The Siege of Boonesborough 

nese were slowly assembling, and rnnners 
were carrying the war-pipe from village to 
village throughout Ohio. But while they had 
been absent at Detroit an event occurred 
which gave Black Fish great concern: one 
of the adopted men, Andrew Johnson — who 
had pretended among the Indians to be a 
simpleton, in order to throw off suspicion, 
but who in reality was one of the most astute 
of woodsmen — had escaped, carrying warn- 
ing to Kentucky, and the earliest knowledge 
that reached the settlers of the location of the 
Shawnese towns. In May, Johnson and five 
comrades went upon a raid against one of 
these villages, capturing several horses and 
bringing home a bunch of Indian scalps, 
for scalping was now almost as freely prac- 
tised by the frontiersmen as the savages; 
such is the degeneracy wrought by warlike 
contact with an inferior race. In June there 
was a similar raid by Boonesborough men, 
resulting to the tribesmen in large losses of 
lives and horses. 

Upon the sixteenth of June, while Black 
Fish's party were boiling salt at the saline 
springs of the Scioto — about a dozen miles 
157 



Daniel Boone 

south of the present Chillicothe — Boone man- 
aged, by exercise of rare sagacity and enter- 
prise, to escape the watchful eyes of his keep- 
ers, their attention having been arrested by 
the appearance of a huge flock of wild tur- 
keys. He reached Boonesborough four days 
later after a perilous journey of a hundred 
and sixty miles through the forest, during 
which he had eaten but one meal — from a 
buffalo which he shot at Blue Licks. He had 
been absent for four and a half months, and 
Mrs. Boone, giving him up for dead, had re- 
turned with their family to her childhood 
home upon the Yadkin. His brother Squire, 
and his daughter Jemima — now married to 
Flanders Calloway — were the only kinsfolk 
to greet the returned captive, who appeared 
out of the woods as one suddenly delivered 
from a tomb. 

During the absence of Daniel Boone there 
had been the usual Indian troubles in Ken- 
tucky. Colonel Bowman had just written to 
Colonel George Rogers Clark, " The Indians 
have pushed us hard this summer." But 
Clark himself at this time was gaining an 
important advantage over the enemy in his 
158 



The Siege of Boonesborough 

daring expedition against the British posts 
of Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes, in the 
Illinois country. Realizing that there would 
be no end to Kentucky's trouble so long as 
the British, aided by their French-Canadian 
agents, were free to organize Indian armies 
north of the Ohio for the purpose of harry- 
ing the southern settlements, Clark " carried 
the war into Africa." With about a hundred 
and fifty men gathered from the frontiers 
of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky, he 
descended the Ohio River, built a fort at 
Louisville, and by an heroic forced march 
across the country captured Kaskaskia, while 
Cahokia and Vincennes at once surrendered 
to the valorous Kentuckian. 

Meanwhile there was business at hand 
for the people of Boonesborough. Amid 
all these alarms they had still neglected to 
complete their defenses; but now, under 
the energetic administration of Boone, the 
palisades were finished, gates and for- 
tresses strengthened, and all four of the 
corner blockhouses put in order. In ten 
days they were ready for the slowly advan- 
cing host. 

159 



Daniel Boone 

Unless fleeing, Indians are never in a 
hurry; they spend much time in noisy prep- 
aration. Hunters and scouts came into 
Boonesborough from time to time, and oc- 
casionally a retaliatory expedition would re- 
turn with horses and scalps from the Little 
Miami and the Scioto, all of them reporting 
delays on the part of the enemy; neverthe- 
less all agreed that a large force was form- 
ing. Toward the close of August Boone, 
wearied of being cooped up in the fort, 
went forth at the head of thirty woodsmen 
to scout in the neighborhood of the Scioto 
towns. With him were Kenton and Alex- 
ander Montgomery, who remained behind in 
Ohio to capture horses and probably pris- 
oners, while Boone and the others returned 
after a week's absence. On their way home 
they discovered that the enemy was now at 
Lower Blue Licks, but a short distance from 
Boonesborough. 

At about ten o'clock the following morn- 
ing (September 7th) the Indian army ap- 
peared before the fort. It numbered fully 
four hundred warriors, mostly Shawnese, 
but with some Wyandots, Cherokees, Dela- 
160 



The Siege of Boonesborough 

wares, Mingos, and other tribesmen. Accom- 
panying them were some forty French-Cana- 
dians, all nnder the command of Boone's 
" father," the redoubtable Black Fish. Pom- 
pey served as chief interpreter. 

Much time was spent in parleys, Boone 
in this manner delaying operations as long 
as possible, vainly hoping that promised re- 
enforcements might meanwhile arrive from 
the Holston. Black Fish wept freely, after 
the Indian fashion, over the ingratitude of 
his runaway " son," and his present stub- 
born attitude; for the latter now told the 
forest chief that he and his people proposed 
to fight to the last man. Black Fish pre- 
sented letters and proclamations from Ham- 
ilton, again offering pardon to all who would 
take the oath of allegiance to the king, and 
military offices for Boone and the other lead- 
ers. When these were rejected, the Indians 
attempted treachery, seeking to overpower 
and kill the white commissioners to a treaty 
being held in front of the fort. From this 
final council, ending in a wild uproar, in 
which bullets flew and knives and tomahawks 
clashed, the whites escaped with difficulty, 
12 161 



Daniel Boone 

the two Boones and another commissioner 
receiving painful wounds. 

A siege of ten days now ensued (Sep- 
tember 8th to 17th), one of the most remark- 
able in the history of savage warfare. The site 
of the fort, a parallelogram embracing three- 
quarters of an acre, had been unwisely cho- 
sen. There was abundant cover for the ene- 
my under the high river bank, also beneath 
an encircling clay bank rising from the salt- 
lick branch ; from hills upon either side spies 
could see what was happening within the 
walls, and occasionally drop a ball into the 
small herd of cattle and horses sheltered be- 
hind the palisades; while to these natural 
disadvantages were added the failure of the 
garrison to clear from the neighborhood of 
the walls the numerous trees, stumps, bushes, 
and rocks, each of which furnished the best 
of cover for a lurking foe. 

Such, however, was the stubbornness of 
the defense, in which the women were, in 
their way, quite as efficient as the men, that_ 
the forces under Black Fish could make but 
small impression upon the valiant little gar- 
rison. Every artifice known to savages, or 
162 




5 9 
S o 

c -a 



tj o 



The Siege of Boonesborough 

that could be suggested by the French, was 
without avail. Almost nightly rains and the 
energy of the riflemen frustrated the numer- 
ous attempts to set fire to the cabins by 
throwing torches and lighted fagots upon 
their roofs ; a tunnel, intended to be used for 
blowing up the walls, was well under way 
from the river bank when rain caused it to 
cave in; attempts at scaling were invariably 
repelled, and in sharpshooting the whites as 
usual proved the superiors. 

But the result often hung in the balance. 
Sometimes the attack lasted throughout the 
night, the scene being constantly lighted by 
the flash of the rifles and the glare of hurling 
fagots. Besiegers and garrison frequently 
exchanged fierce cries of threat and defiance, 
mingled with many a keen shaft of wit and 
epithet; at times the yells and whoops of 
the savages, the answering shouts and huz- 
zahs of the defenders, the screams of women 
and girls, the howling of dogs, the snorting 
and bellowing of the plunging live stock, to- 
gether with the sharp rattle of firearms, cre- 
ated a deafening hubbub well calculated to 
test the nerves of the strongest. 
163 



Daniel Boone 

At last, on the morning of Friday, the 
eighteenth, the Indians, now thoroughly dis- 
heartened, suddenly disappeared into the 
forest as silently as they had come. Again 
Boonesborough was free, having passed 
through the longest and severest ordeal of 
attack ever known in Kentucky; indeed, it 
proved to be the last effort against this sta- 
tion. Within the walls sixty persons had 
been capable of bearing arms, but only forty 
were effective, some of these being negroes ; 
Logan's Fort had sent a reenforcement of 
fifteen men, and Harrodsburg a few others. 
Of the garrison but two were killed and four 
wounded, while Boone estimated that the 
enemy lost thirty-seven killed and a large 
number wounded. The casualties within the 
fort were astonishingly small, when the large 
amount of ammunition expended by the be- 
siegers is taken into account. After they had 
retired, Boone's men picked up a hundred 
and twenty-five pounds of flattened bullets 
that had been fired at the log stronghold, 
handfuls being scooped up beneath the port- 
holes of the bastions ; this salvage made no 
account of the balls thickly studding the 
164 



The Siege of Boonesborough 

walls, it being estimated that a hundred 
pounds of lead were buried in the logs of 
one of the bastions. 

A week later a small company of militia- 
men arrived from Virginia, and several minor 
expeditions were now made against the Shaw- 
nese upon their own soil. These raids were 
chiefly piloted by Boone's salt-makers, many 
of whom had now returned from captivity. 
Boone is credited with saying in his later 
years, although no doubt in ruder language 
than this : " Never did the Indians pursue so 
disastrous a policy as when they captured 
me and my salt-boilers, and taught us, what 
we did not know before, the way to their 
towns and the geography of their country; 
for though at first our captivity was con- 
sidered a great calamity to Kentucky, it re- 
sulted in the most signal benefits to the 
country." 

Captain Boone was not without his crit- 
ics. Soon after the siege he was arraigned 
before a court-martial at Logan's Fort upon 
the following charges preferred by Colonel 
Calloway, who thought that the great hunt- 
er was in favor of the British Government 
165 



Daniel Boone 

and had sought opportunity to play into 
its hands, therefore should be deprived of 
his commission in the Kentucky County mi- 
litia : 

" 1. That Boone had taken out twenty-six 
men * to make salt at the Blue Licks, and the 
Indians had caught him trapping for beaver 
ten miles below on Licking, and he volun- 
tarily surrendered his men at the Licks to 
the enemy. 

" 2. That when a prisoner, he engaged 
with Gov. Hamilton to surrender the people 
of Boonesborough to be removed to Detroit, 
and live under British protection and juris- 
diction. 

" 3. That returning from captivity, he en- 
couraged a party of men to accompany him 
to the Paint Lick Town, weakening the gar- 
rison at a time when the arrival of an In- 
dian army was daily expected to attack the 
fort. 

" 4. That preceding the attack on Boones- 
borough, he was willing to take the officers 
of the fort, on pretense of making peace, to 

* Account is only taken, in these charges, of the twenty- 
seven captives. 

166 



The Siege of Boonesborough 

the Indian camp, beyond the protection of 
the guns of the garrison." 

Boone defended himself at length, main- 
taining that he aimed only at the interests 
of the country; that while hunting at the 
licks he was engaged in the necessary service 
of the camp; that he had used duplicity to 
win the confidence of the enemy, and it re- 
sulted favorably, as he was thereby enabled 
to escape in time to warn his people and 
put them in a state of defense ; that his Scioto 
expedition was a legitimate scouting trip, 
and turned out well; and that in the nego- 
tiations before the fort he was simply " play- 
ing " the Indians in order to gain time for 
expected reenforcements. He was not only 
honorably acquitted, but at once advanced 
to the rank of major, and received evidences 
of the unhesitating loyalty of all classes of 
his fellow borderers, the majority of whom 
appear to have always confided in his sa- 
gacity and patriotism. 

Personally vindicated, the enenry depart- 
ed, and several companies of militia now ar- 
riving to garrison the stations for the winter, 
Major Boone once more turned his face to 
167 



Daniel Boone 

the Yadkin and sought his family. He found 
them at the Bryan settlement, living com- 
fortably in a small log cabin, but until then 
unconscious of his return from the wilder- 
ness in which they had supposed he found 
his grave. 



168 



CHAPTER XII 

SOLDIER AND STATESMAN 

In Daniel Boone's " autobiography," he 
dismisses his year of absence from Kentucky 
with few words : " I went into the settlement, 
and nothing worthy of notice passed for some 
time." No doubt he hunted in some of his 
old haunts upon the Yadkin; and there is 
reason for believing that he made a trip upon 
business of some character to Charleston, 
S. C. 

Meanwhile, his fellow settlers of Ken- 
tucky had not been inactive. In February 
(1779) Clark repossessed himself of Vin- 
cennes after one of the most brilliant forced 
marches of the Revolution ; and having there 
captured Governor Hamilton — the " hair- 
buying general," as the frontiersmen called 
him, because they thought he paid bounties 
on American scalps — had sent him a prisoner 
to Virginia. The long siege of Boonesbor- 
ough and the other attacks of the preceding 
169 



Daniel Boone 

year, together with more recent assaults 
upon flatboats descending the Ohio, had 
strongly disposed the Kentuckians to retali- 
ate on the Shawnese. Two hundred and 
thirty riflemen under Colonel Bowman ren- 
dezvoused in July at the mouth of the Lick- 
ing, where is now the city of Covington. 
Nearly a third of the force were left to guard 
the boats in which they crossed the Ohio, 
the rest marching against Old Chillicothe, 
the chief Shawnese town on the Little Miami. 
They surprised the Indians, and a hotly con- 
tested battle ensued, lasting from dawn until 
ten o'clock in the morning ; but the overpow- 
ering numbers of the savages caused Bow- 
man to return crestfallen to Kentucky with 
a loss of nearly a dozen men. This was the 
forerunner of many defeats of Americans, 
both bordermen and regulars, at the hands 
of the fierce tribesmen of Ohio. 

Readers of Revolutionary history as re- 
lated from the Eastern standpoint are led 
to suppose that the prolonged struggle with 
the mother country everywhere strained the 
resources of the young nation, and was the 
chief thought of the people. This high ten- 
170 



Soldier and Statesman 

sion was, however, principally in the tide- 
water region. In the " back country," as the 
Western frontiers were called, there was no 
lack of patriotism, and bordermen were 
numerous in the colonial armies ; yet the de- 
velopment of the trans-Alleghany region was 
to them of more immediate concern, and 
went forward vigorously, especially during 
the last half of the war. This did not mean 
that the backwoodsmen of the foot-hills were 
escaping from the conflict by crossing west- 
ward beyond the mountains; they were in- 
stead planting themselves upon the left flank, 
for French and Indian scalping parties were 
continually harrying the Western settle- 
ments, and the Eastern forces were too 
busily engaged to give succor. Kentuckians 
were left practically alone to defend the back- 
door of the young Republic. 

In this year (1779) the Virginia legisla- 
ture adopted laws for the preemption of land 
in Kentucky, which promised a more secure 
tenure than had hitherto prevailed, and thus 
gave great impetus to over-mountain emi- 
gration. Hitherto those going out to Ken- 
tucky were largely hunters, explorers, sur- 
171 



Daniel Boone 

veyors, and land speculators; comparatively 
few families were established in the wilder- 
ness stations. But henceforth the emigra- 
tion was chiefly by households, some by 
boats down the Ohio River, and others over- 
land by the Wilderness Road — for the first 
official improvement of which Virginia made 
a small appropriation at this time. Says 
Chief Justice Robinson,* whose parents set- 
tled in Kentucky in December : 

" This beneficent enactment brought to 
the country during the fall and winter of 
that year an unexampled tide of emigrants, 
who, exchanging all the comforts of their 
native society and homes for settlements for 
themselves and their children here, came like 
pilgrims to a wilderness to be made secure 
by their arms and habitable by the toil of 
their lives. Through privations incredible 
and perils thick, thousands of men, women, 
and children came in successive caravans, 
forming continuous streams of human beings, 
horses, cattle, and other domestic animals, 
all moving onward along a lonely and house- 

* Address at Camp Madison, Franklin County, Ky., in 
1843. 

172 



Soldier and Statesman 

less path to a wild and cheerless land. Cast 
your eyes back on that long procession of 
missionaries in the cause of civilization; be- 
hold the men on foot with their trusty guns 
on their shoulders, driving stock and leading 
packhorses; and the women, some walking 
with pails on their heads, others riding, 
with children in their laps, and other chil- 
dren swung in baskets on horses, fastened 
to the tails of others going before ; see them 
encamped at night expecting to be massacred 
by Indians ; behold them in the month of De- 
cember, in that ever-memorable season of un- 
precedented cold called the 'hard winter,' 
traveling two or three miles a day, fre- 
quently in danger of being frozen, or killed 
by the falling of horses on the icy and almost 
impassable trace, and subsisting on stinted 
allowances of stale bread and meat ; but now, 
lastly, look at them at the destined fort, per- 
haps on the eve of merry Christmas, when 
met by the hearty welcome of friends who 
had come before, and cheered by fresh buf- 
falo-meat and parched corn, they rejoice at 
their deliverance, and resolve to be contented 
with their lot." 

173 



Daniel Boone 

In October, as a part of this great throng, 
Daniel Boone and his family returned to 
Kentucky by his old route through Cumber- 
land Gap, being two weeks upon the journey. 
The great hunter was at the head of a com- 
pany of Rowan County folk, and carried 
with him two small cannon, the first artillery 
sent by Virginia to protect the Western forts. 
Either as one of his party, or later in the 
season, there came to Kentucky Abraham 
Lincoln, of Rockingham County, Va., grand- 
father of the martyred president. The Lin- 
colns and the Boones had been neighbors and 
warm friends in Pennsylvania, and ever 
since had maintained pleasant relations — in- 
deed, had frequently intermarried. It was 
by Boone's advice and encouragement that 
Lincoln migrated with his family to the 
" dark and bloody ground " and took up a 
forest claim in the heart of Jefferson County. 
Daniel's younger brother Edward, killed by 
Indians a year later, was of the same com- 
pany. 

Boone also brought news that the legis- 
lature had incorporated " the town of 
Boonesborough in the County of Kentuckey," 
174 



Soldier and Statesman 

of which he was named a trustee, which 
office he eventually declined. The town, al- 
though now laid out into building lots, and an- 
ticipating a prosperous growth, never rose to 
importance and at last passed away. Noth- 
ing now remains upon the deserted site, 
which Boone could have known, save a de- 
crepit sycamore-tree and a tumble-down 
ferry established in the year of the incor- 
poration. 

As indicated in Robinson's address, quot- 
ed above, the winter of 1779-80 was a season 
of unwonted severity. After an exception- 
ally mild autumn, cold weather set in by the 
middle of November and lasted without thaw 
for two months, with deep snow and zero 
temperature. The rivers were frozen as far 
south as Nashville; emigrant wagons were 
stalled in the drifts while crossing the moun- 
tains, and everywhere was reported unexam- 
pled hardship. It will be remembered that 
the Revolutionary Army in the East suffered 
intensely from the same cause. The Indians 
had, the preceding summer, destroyed most 
of the corn throughout Kentucky; the game 
was rapidly decreasing, deer and buffaloes 
175 



Daniel Boone 

having receded before the advance of settle- 
ment, and a temporary famine ensued. 
Hunters were employed to obtain meat for 
the newcomers ; and in this occupation Boone 
and Harrod, in particular, were actively en- 
gaged throughout the winter, making long 
trips into the forest, both north and south 
of Kentucky Kiver. 

The land titles granted by the Tran- 
sylvania Company having been declared 
void, it became necessary for Boone and the 
other settlers under that grant to purchase 
from the State government of Virginia new 
warrants. For this purpose Boone set out 
for Richmond in the spring. Nathaniel and 
Thomas Hart and others of his friends com- 
missioned him to act as their agent in this 
matter. With his own small means and that 
which was entrusted to him for the purpose, 
he carried $20,000 in depreciated paper 
money — probably worth but half that amount 
in silver. It appears that of this entire sum 
he was robbed upon his way — where, or un- 
der what circumstances, we are unable to 
discover. His petition to the Kentucky leg- 
islature, in his old age, simply states the 
176 



Soldier and Statesman 

fact of the robbery, adding that he "was 
left destitute." A large part of the money 
was the property of his old friends, the 
Harts, but many others also suffered greatly. 
There was some disposition on the part of 
a few to attribute dishonorable action to 
Boone; but the Harts, although the chief 
losers, came promptly to the rescue and 
sharply censured his critics, declaring him 
to be a " just and upright " man, beyond sus- 
picion — a verdict which soon became unani- 
mous. Sympathy for the honest but unbusi- 
nesslike pioneer was so general, that late in 
June, soon after the robbery, Virginia grant- 
ed him a preemption of a thousand acres of 
land in what is now Bourbon County. 

A tradition exists that while in Virginia 
that summer Boone called upon his former 
host at Detroit, then a prisoner of war, and 
expressed sympathy for the sad plight into 
which the English governor had fallen; 
also some indignation at the harsh treatment 
accorded him, and of which Hamilton bit- 
terly complained. 

The founder of Boonesborough was soon 
back at his station, for he served as a jury- 
is 177 



Daniel Boone 

man there on the first of July. During his 
absence immigration into Kentucky had been 
greater than ever; three hundred well-laden 
family boats had arrived in the spring from 
the Pennsylvania and New York frontiers, 
while many caravans had come from Vir- 
ginia and the Carolinas over the Wilderness 
Road. Attacks by Indian scalping parties 
had been numerous along both routes, but 
particularly upon the Ohio. As a reprisal 
for Bowman's expedition of the previous 
year, and intending to interrupt settlement, 
Colonel Byrd, of the British Army, de- 
scended in June upon Ruddle's and Martin's 
Stations, at the forks of the Licking, with six 
hundred Indians and French-Canadians, and 
bringing six small cannon with which to bat- 
ter the Kentucky palisades. Both garrisons 
were compelled to surrender, and the victors 
returned to Detroit with a train of three hun- 
dred prisoners — men, women, and children — 
upon whom the savages practised cruelties 
of a particularly atrocious character. 

This inhuman treatment of prisoners of 
war created wide-spread indignation upon 
the American border. In retaliation, George 
178 



Soldier and Statesman 

Eogers Clark at once organized an expedi- 
tion to destroy Pickaway, one of the prin- 
cipal Shawnese towns on the Great Miami. 
The place was reduced to ashes and a large 
number of Indians killed, the Americans los- 
ing seventeen men. Clark had previously 
built Fort Jefferson, upon the first bluff on 
the eastern side of the Mississippi below the 
mouth of the Ohio, in order to accentuate 
the claim of the United States that it extend- 
ed to the Mississippi on the west ; but as this 
was upon the territory of friendly Chicka- 
saws, the invasion aroused their ire, and it 
was deemed prudent temporarily to abandon 
the post. 

Another important event of the year (No- 
vember, 1780) was the division of Kentucky 
by the Virginia legislature into three coun- 
ties — Jefferson, with its seat at Louisville, 
now the chief town in the Western country; 
Lincoln, governed from Harrodsburg; and 
Fayette, with Lexington as its seat. Of 
these, Fayette, embracing the country be- 
tween the Kentucky and the Ohio, was the 
least populated; and, being the most north- 
ern and traversed by the Licking River, now 
179 



Daniel Boone 

the chief war-path of the Shawnese, was most 
exposed to attack. After his return Boone 
soon tired of Boonesborough, for in his ab- 
sence the population had greatly changed by 
the removal or death of many of his old 
friends; and, moreover, game had quite de- 
serted the neighborhood. With his family, 
his laden packhorses, and his dogs, he there- 
fore moved to a new location across Ken- 
tucky River, about five miles northwest of 
his first settlement. Here, at the crossing of 
several buffalo-trails, and on the banks of 
Boone's Creek, he built a palisaded log house 
called Boone's Station. Upon the division of 
Kentucky this new stronghold fell within the 
borders of Fayette County. 

In the primitive stage of frontier settle- 
ment, when the common weal demanded from 
every man or boy able to carry a rifle active 
militia service whenever called upon, the 
military organization was quite equal in im- 
portance to the civil. The new wilderness 
counties were therefore equipped with a full 
roll of officers, Fayette County's colonel be- 
ing John Todd, while Daniel Boone was lieu- 
tenant-colonel ; Floyd, Pope, Logan, and 
180 



Soldier and Statesman 

Trigg served the sister counties in like man- 
ner. The three county regiments were 
formed into a brigade, with Clark as briga- 
dier-general, his headquarters being at Lou- 
isville (Fort Nelson). Each county had also 
a court to try civil and criminal cases, but 
capital offenses could only be tried at Rich- 
mond. There was likewise a surveyor for 
each county, Colonel Thomas Marshall serv- 
ing for Fayette; Boone was his deputy for 
several years (1782-85). 

In October, 1780, Edward Boone, then but 
thirty-six years of age, accompanied Daniel 
to Grassy Lick, in the northeast part of the 
present Bourbon County, to boil salt. Being 
attacked by a large band of Indians, Edward 
was killed in the first volley, and fell at the 
feet of his brother, who at once shot the 
savage whom he thought to be the slayer. 
Daniel then fled, stopping once to load and 
kill another foe. Closely pursued, he had 
recourse to all the arts of evasion at his com- 
mand — wading streams to break the trail, 
swinging from tree to tree by aid of wild 
grape-vines, and frequently zigzagging. A 
hound used in the chase kept closely to him, 
181 



Daniel Boone 

however, and revealed his whereabouts by 
baying, until the hunter killed the wily beast, 
and finally reached his station in safety. 
Heading an avenging party of sixty men, 
Boone at once went in pursuit of the enemy, 
and followed them into Ohio, but the expedi- 
tion returned without result. 

The following April Boone went to Rich- 
mond as one of the first representatives of 
Fayette County in the State legislature. 
With the approach of Cornwallis, La Fayette, 
whose corps was then protecting Virginia, 
abandoned Richmond, and the Assembly ad- 
journed to Charlottesville. Colonel Tarleton, 
at the head of a body of light horse, made a 
dash upon the town, hoping to capture the 
law-makers, and particularly Governor Jef- 
ferson, whose term was just then expiring. 
Jefferson and the entire Assembly had been 
warned, but had a narrow escape (June 4th), 
for while they were riding out of one end 
of town Tarleton was galloping in at the 
other. The raider succeeded in capturing 
three or four of the legislators, Boone among 
them, and after destroying a quantity of mili- 
tary stores took his prisoners to Cornwallis's 
182 



Soldier and Statesman 

camp. The members were paroled after a 
few days' detention. The Assembly fled to 
Staunton, thirty-five miles distant, where it 
resumed the session. The released members 
are reported to have again taken their seats, 
although, after his capture, Boone's name 
does not appear in the printed journals. 
Possibly the conditions of the parole did not 
permit him again to serve at the current ses- 
sion, which closed the twenty-third of June. 
He seems to fiave spent the summer in Ken- 
tucky, and late in September went up the 
Ohio to Pittsburg, thence journeying to the 
home of his boyhood in eastern Pennsyl- 
vania, where he visited friends and relatives 
for a month, and then returned to Richmond 
to resume his legislative duties. 

Of all the dark years which Kentucky ex- 
perienced, 1782 was the bloodiest. The Brit- 
ish authorities at Detroit exerted their ut- 
most endeavors to stem the rising tide of 
settlement and to crush the aggressive mili- 
tary operations of Clark and his fellow- 
borderers. With presents and smooth words 
they enlisted the cooperation of the most 
distant tribes, the hope being held out that 
183 



Daniel Boone 

success would surely follow persistent attack 
and a policy of " no quarter." It would be 
wearisome to cite all the forays made by sav- 
ages during this fateful year, upon flatboats 
descending the Ohio, upon parties of immi- 
grants following the Wilderness Road, upon 
outlying forest settlers, and in the neighbor- 
hood of fortified stations. The border an- 
nals of the time abound in details of rob- 
bery, burning, murder, captivities, and of 
heart-rending tortures worse than death. A 
few only which have won prominence in his- 
tory must here suffice. 

In March, some Wyandots had been op- 
erating in the neighborhood of Boonesbor- 
ough and then departed for EstilPs Station, 
fifteen miles away, near the present town 
of Richmond. Captain Estill and his gar- 
rison of twenty-five men were at the time 
absent on a scout, and thus unable to pre- 
vent the killing and scalping of a young 
woman and the capture of a negro slave. 
According to custom, the Indians retreated 
rapidly after this adventure, but were pur- 
sued by Estill. A stubborn fight ensued, 
there being now eighteen whites and twenty- 
184 



Soldier and Statesman 

five savages. Each man stood behind a tree, 
and through nearly two hours fought with 
uncommon tenacity. The Indians lost seven- 
teen killed and two wounded, while the whites 
were reduced to three survivors, Estill him- 
self being among the slain. The survivors 
then withdrew by mutual consent. 

In May, his station having been attacked 
with some loss, Captain Ashton followed the 
retreating party of besiegers, much larger 
than his own squad, and had a fierce engage- 
ment with them lasting two hours. He and 
eleven of his comrades lost their lives, and 
the remainder fled in dismay. A similar 
tragedy occurred in August, when Captain 
Holden, chasing a band of scalpers, was de- 
feated with a loss of four killed and one 
wounded. 

The month of August marked the height 
of the onslaught. Horses were carried off, 
cattle killed, men at work in the fields 
mercilessly slaughtered, and several of the 
more recent and feeble stations were aban- 
doned. Bryan's Station, consisting of forty 
cabins enclosed by a stout palisade, was the 
largest and northernmost of a group of 
185 



Daniel Boone 

Fayette County settlements in the rich conn- 
try of which Lexington is the center. An 
army of nearly a thousand Indians — the larg- 
est of either race that had thus far been 
mustered in the West — was gathered under 
Captains Caldwell and McKee, of the British 
Army, who were accompanied by the rene- 
gade Simon Girty and a small party of ran- 
gers. Scouts had given a brief warning to 
the little garrison of fifty riflemen, but when 
the invaders appeared during the night of 
August 15th the defenders were still lacking 
a supply of water. 

The Indians at first sought to conceal 
their presence by hiding in the weeds and 
bushes which, as at Boonesborough, had 
carelessly been left standing. Although 
aware of the extent of the attacking force, 
the garrison affected to be without suspicion. 
In the morning the women and girls, confi- 
dent that if no fear were exhibited they 
would not be shot by the hiding savages, vol- 
unteered to go to the spring outside the walls, 
and by means of buckets bring in enough 
water to fill the reservoir. This daring feat 
was successfully accomplished. Although 
186 



Soldier and Statesman 

painted faces and gleaming rifles could read- 
ily be seen in the underbrush all about the 
pool, this bucket-line of brave frontiers- 
women laughed and talked as gaily as if un- 
conscious of danger, and were unmolested. 

Immediately after their return within the 
gates, some young men went to the spring 
to draw the enemy's fire, and met a fusillade 
from which they barely escaped with their 
lives. The assault now began in earnest. 
Eunners were soon spreading the news of 
the invasion among the neighboring garri- 
sons. A relief party of forty-six hurrying in 
from Lexington fell into an ambush and lost 
a few of their number in killed and wounded, 
but the majority reached the fort through a 
storm of bullets. The besiegers adopted the 
usual methods of savage attack — quick rush- 
es, shooting from cover, fire-arrows, and the 
customary uproar of whoops and yells — but 
without serious effect. The following morn- 
ing, fearful of a general outpouring of set- 
tlers, the enemy withdrew hurriedly and in 
sullen mood. 

Colonel Boone was soon marching 
through the forest toward Bryan's, as were 
187 



Daniel Boone 

similar companies from Lexington, McCon- 
nelPs, and McGee's, the other members of 
the Fayette County group; and men from 
the counties of Jefferson and Lincoln were 
also upon the way, under their military lead- 
ers. The neighboring contingents promptly 
arrived at Bryan's in the course of the after- 
noon. 

The next morning a hundred and eighty- 
two of the best riflemen in Kentucky, under 
Colonel Todd as ranking officer, started in 
pursuit of the foe, who had followed a buf- 
falo-trail to Blue Licks, and were crossing 
the Licking when the pursuers arrived on the 
scene. A council of war was held, at which 
Boone, the most experienced man in the 
party, advised delay until the expected re- 
enforcements could arrive. The bulk of the 
Indians had by this time escaped, leaving 
only about three hundred behind, who were 
plainly luring the whites to an attack. Todd, 
Trigg, and most of the other leaders sided 
with Boone ; but Major Hugh McGary, an ar- 
dent, hot-headed man, with slight military 
training, dared the younger men to follow 
him, and spurred his horse into the river, 
188 



Soldier and Statesman 

whither, in the rash enthusiasm of the mo- 
ment, the hot-bloods followed him, leaving 
the chief officers no choice but to accompany 
them. 

Rushing up a rocky slope on the other 
side, where a few Indians could be seen, the 
column soon fell into an ambush. A mad 
panic resulted, in which the Kentuckians for 
the most part acted bravely and caused many 
of the enemy to fall ; but they were overpow- 
ered and forced to flee in hot haste, leaving 
seventy of their number dead on the field 
and seven captured. Among the killed were 
Todd and Trigg, fighting gallantly to the last. 
Boone lost his son Israel, battling by his 
side, and himself escaped only by swimming 
the river amid a shower of lead. A day or 
two later Logan arrived with four hundred 
men, among whom was Simon Kenton, to 
reenforce Todd; to him was left only the 
melancholy duty of burying the dead, now 
sadly disfigured by Indians, vultures, and 
wolves. 

The greater part of the savage victors, 
laden with scalps and spoils, returned ex- 
ultantly to their northern homes, although 
189 



Daniel Boone 

small bands still remained south of the Ohio, 
carrying wide-spread devastation through 
the settlements, especially in the neighbor- 
hood of Salt River, where, at one station, 
thirty-seven prisoners were taken. 

While all these tragedies were being en- 
acted, General Clark, at the Falls of the Ohio, 
had offered only slight aid. But indignant 
protests sent in to the Virginia authorities 
by the Kentucky settlers, who were now in 
a state of great alarm, roused the hero of 
Kaskaskia and Vincennes to a sense of his 
duty. A vigorous call to arms was now is- 
sued throughout the three counties. Early in 
November over a thousand mounted riflemen 
met their brigadier at the mouth of the Lick- 
ing, and from the site of Cincinnati marched 
through the Ohio forests to the Indian towns 
on the Little Miami. The savages fled in 
consternation, leaving the Kentuckians to 
burn their cabins and the warehouses of sev- 
eral British traders, besides large stores of 
grain and dried meats, thus entailing great 
suffering among the Shawnese during the 
winter now close at hand. 

The triumphant return of this expedition 
190 



Soldier and Statesman 

gave fresh heart to the people of Kentucky ; 
and the sequel proved that, although the 
tribesmen of the north frequently raided the 
over-mountain settlers throughout the decade 
to come, no such important invasions as 
those of 1782 were again undertaken. 



191 



CHAPTER XIII 

KENTUCKY'S PATH OP THORNS 

The preliminary articles of peace be- 
tween the United States and Great Britain 
had been signed on the thirtieth of Novem- 
ber, 1782; but it was not until the following 
spring that the news reached Kentucky. The 
northern tribes had information of the peace 
quite as early; and discouraged at appar- 
ently losing their British allies, who had fed, 
clothed, armed, and paid them from head- 
quarters in Detroit, for a time suspended 
their organized raids into Kentucky. This 
welcome respite caused immigration to in- 
crease rapidly. 

We have seen how the old system of mak- 
ing preemptions and surveys led to the over- 
lapping of claims, the commission of many 
acts of injustice, and wide-spread confusion 
in titles. Late in 1782, Colonel Thomas Mar- 
shall, the surveyor of Fayette County, ar- 
rived from Virginia, and began to attempt a 
192 



Kentucky's Path of Thorns 

straightening of the land conflict. Boone 
was now not only the surveyor's deputy, but 
both sheriff and county lieutenant of Fayette, 
a combination of offices which he held until 
his departure from Kentucky. It was his 
duty as commandant to provide an escort 
for Marshall through the woods to the Falls 
of the Ohio, where was now the land-office. 
The following order which he issued for this 
guard has been preserved; it is a character- 
istic sample of the many scores of letters 
and other documents which have come down 
to us from the old hero, who fought better 
than he spelled : 

" Orders to Capt. Hazelrigg — your are 
amedetly to order on Duty 3 of your Com- 
pany as goude [guard] to scorte Col Marsh- 
shall to the falls of ohigho you will call on 
those who was Exicused from the Shone 
[Shawnese] Expedistion and those who 
Come into the County after the army 
Marched they are to meet at Lexinton on 
Sunday next with out fale given under my 
hand this 6 Day of Janury 1783. 

"Dnl Boone" 
14 193 



Daniel Boone 

Another specimen document of the time 
has reference to the scouting which it was 
necessary to maintain throughout much of 
the year; for small straggling bands of the 
enemy were still lurking about, eager to cap- 
ture occasional scalps, the proudest trophies 
which a warrior could obtain. It also is ap- 
parently addressed to Hazelrigg : 

" orders the 15th f eberry 1783 
" Sir you are amedetly to Call on Duty 
one thurd of our melitia as will mounted on 
horse as poseble and Eight Days purvistion 
to take a touere as follows Commanded by 
Leut Col patison and Eendevues at Strod 
[Strode's Station] on thusday the 20th from 
there to March to Colkes [Calk's] Cabin 
thence an Este Corse till the gat 10 miles 
above the uper Blew Licks then Down to 
Lickes thence to Limestown and if no Sine 
[is] found a stright Corse to Eagel Crick 10 
miles from the head from then home if Sine 
be found the Commander to act as he thinks 
most prudent as you will be the Best Judge 
when on the Spot. You will first Call on all 
who [were] Excused from the Expedistion 
194 



Kentucky's Path of Thorns 

Except those that went to the falls with Col. 
Marshall and then Call them off as they 
Stand on the List here in f aile not. given nnd 
my hand « d aniel Boone C Lt." 

In March the Virginia legislature united 
the three counties into the District of Ken- 
tucky, with complete legal and military ma- 
chinery; in the latter, Benjamin Logan 
ranked as senior colonel and district lieuten- 
ant. It will be remembered that when the 
over-mountain country was detached from 
Fincastle, it was styled the County of Ken- 
tucky; then the name of Kentucky was ob- 
literated by its division into three counties; 
and now the name was revived by the crea- 
tion of the district, which in due time was 
to become a State. The log-built town of 
Danville was named as the capital. 

It is estimated that during the few years 
immediately following the close of the Eevo- 
lutionary War several thousand persons 
came each year to Kentucky from the sea- 
board States, although many of these re- 
turned to their homes either disillusioned or 
because of Indian scares. In addition to the 
195 



Daniel Boone 

actual settlers, who cared for no more land 
than they could use, there were merchants 
who saw great profits in taking boat-loads of 
goods down the Ohio or by pack-trains over 
the mountains ; lawyers and other young pro- 
fessional men who wished to make a start in 
new communities ; and speculators who hoped 
to make fortunes in obtaining for a song ex- 
tensive tracts of fertile wild land, which they 
vainly imagined would soon be salable at 
large prices for farms and town sites. Many 
of the towns, although ill-kept and far from 
prosperous in appearance, were fast extend- 
ing beyond their lines of palisade and boast- 
ing of stores, law-offices, market-places, and 
regular streets; Louisville had now grown 
to a village of three hundred inhabitants, of 
whom over a third were fighting-men. Be- 
sides Americans, there were among the new- 
comers many Germans, Scotch, and Irish, 
thrifty in the order named. 

At last Kentucky was raising produce 
more than sufficient to feed her own people, 
and an export trade had sprung up. Crops 
were being diversified: Indian corn still re- 
mained the staple, but there were also mel- 
196 



Kentucky's Path of Thorns 

ons, pumpkins, tobacco, and orchards; be- 
sides, great droves of horses, cattle, sheep, 
and hogs, branded or otherwise marked, 
ranged at large over the country, as 
in old days on the Virginia and Carolina 
foot-hills. Away from the settlements buf- 
faloes still yielded much beef, bacon was 
made from bears, and venison was a staple 
commodity. 

The fur trade was chiefly carried on by 
French trappers ; but American hunters, like 
the Boones and Kenton, still gathered peltries 
from the streams and forests, and took or 
sent them to the East, either up the Ohio in 
bateaux or on packhorses over the moun- 
tains — paths still continually beset by sav- 
age assailants. Large quantities of ginseng 
were also shipped to the towns on the sea- 
board. Of late there had likewise developed 
a considerable trade with New Orleans and 
other Spanish towns down the Mississippi 
River. Traders with flatboats laden with 
Kentucky produce — bacon, beef, salt, and 
tobacco — would descend the great water- 
way, both of whose banks were audaciously 
claimed by Spain as far up as the mouth of 
197 



Daniel Boone 

the Ohio, and take great risks from Indian at- 
tack or from corrupt Spanish custom-house 
officials, whom it was necessary to bribe free- 
ly that they might not confiscate boat and 
cargo. This commerce was always uncertain, 
often ending in disaster, but immensely prof- 
itable to the unprincipled men who managed 
to ingratiate themselves with the Spanish au- 
thorities. 

Boone was now in frequent demand as a 
pilot and surveyor by capitalists who relied 
upon his unrivaled knowledge of the country 
to help them find desirable tracts of land; 
often he was engaged to meet incoming par- 
ties of immigrants over the Wilderness Road, 
with a band of riflemen to guard them against 
Indians, to furnish them with wild meat — 
for the newcomers at first were inexpert in 
killing buffaloes — and to show them the way 
to their claims. He was prominent as a pio- 
neer; as county lieutenant he summoned his 
faithful men-at-arms to repel or avenge sav- 
age attacks ; and his fame as hunter and ex- 
plorer had by this time not only become gen- 
eral throughout the United States but had 
even reached Europe. 

198 



Kentucky's Path of Thorns 

His reputation was largely increased by 
the appearance in 1784 of the so-called " au- 
tobiography." We have seen that, although 
capable of roughly expressing himself on 
paper, and of making records of his rude 
surveys, he was in no sense a scholar. Yet 
this autobiography, although signed by him- 
self, is pedantic in form, and deals in words 
as large and sonorous as though uttered by 
the great Doctor Samuel Johnson. As a 
matter of fact, it is the production of John 
Filson, the first historian of Kentucky and 
one of the pioneers of Cincinnati. Filson 
was a schoolmaster, quite devoid of humor, 
and with a strong penchant for learned 
phrases. In setting down the story of 
Boone's life, as related to him by the great 
hunter, he made the latter talk in the first 
person, in a stilted manner quite foreign 
to the hardy but unlettered folk of whom 
Boone was a type. Wherever Boone's mem- 
ory failed, Filson appears to have filled in 
the gaps from tradition and his own imagina- 
tion; thus the autobiography is often wrong 
as to facts, and possesses but minor value as 
historical material. The little book was, how- 
199 



Daniel Boone 

ever, widely circulated both at home and 
abroad, and gave Boone a notoriety excelled 
by few men of his day. Some years later 
Byron wrote some indifferent lines upon 
" General Boone of Kentucky ; " the public 
journals of the time had accounts of his 
prowess, often grossly exaggerated; and 
English travelers into the interior of Amer- 
ica eagerly sought the hero and told of him 
in their books. 

Yet it must be confessed that he had now 
ceased to be a real leader in the affairs of 
Kentucky. A kindly, simple-hearted, modest, 
silent man, he had lived so long by himself 
alone in the woods that he was ill fitted to 
cope with the horde of speculators and other 
self-seekers who were now despoiling the old 
hunting-grounds to which Finley had piloted 
him only fifteen years before. Of great use 
to the frontier settlements as explorer, hunt- 
er, pilot, land-seeker, surveyor, Indian fight- 
er, and sheriff — and, indeed, as magistrate 
and legislator so long as Kentucky was a 
community of riflemen — he had small capac- 
ity for the economic and political sides of 
commonwealth-building. For this reason we 
200 



Kentucky's Path of Thorns 

find him hereafter, although still in middle 
life, taking but slight part in the making of 
Kentucky; none the less did his career 
continue to be adventurous, picturesque, and 
in a measure typical of the rapidly expand- 
ing West. 

Probably in the early spring of 1786 
Boone left the neighborhood of the Kentucky 
Eiver, and for some three years dwelt at 
Maysville (Limestone), still the chief gate- 
way to Kentucky for the crowds of immi- 
grants who came by water. He was there a 
tavern-keeper — probably Mrs. Boone was 
the actual hostess — and small river mer- 
chant. He still frequently worked at sur- 
veying, of course hunted and trapped as of 
old, and traded up and down the Ohio Eiver 
between Maysville and Point Pleasant — the 
last-named occupation a far from peaceful 
one, for in those troublous times navigation 
of the Ohio was akin to running the gaunt- 
let; savages haunted the banks, and by dint 
of both strategy and open attack wrought a 
heavy mortality among luckless travelers and 
tradesmen. The goods which he bartered to 
the Kentuckians for furs, skins, and ginseng 
201 



Daniel Boone 

were obtained in Maryland, whither he and 
his sons went with laden pack-animals, often 
driving before them loose horses for sale in 
the Eastern markets. Sometimes they fol- 
lowed some familiar mountain road, at others 
struck out over new paths, for no longer was 
the Wilderness Road the only overland high- 
way to the West. 

Kentucky was now pursuing a path 
strewn with thorns. Northward, the British 
still held the military posts on the upper 
lakes, owing to the non-fulfilment of certain 
stipulations in the treaty of peace. Between 
these and the settlements south of the Ohio 
lay a wide area populated by powerful and 
hostile tribes of Indians, late allies of the 
British, deadly enemies of Kentucky, and 
still aided and abetted by military agents of 
the king. To the South, Spain controlled the 
Mississippi, the commercial highway of the 
West; jealous of American growth, she 
harshly denied to Kentuckians the freedom 
of the river, and was accused of turning 
against them and their neighbors of Tennes- 
see the fierce warriors of the Creek and Cher- 
okee tribes. On their part, the Kentuckians 
202 



Kentucky's Path of Thorns 

looked with hungry eyes upon the rich lands 
held by Spain. 

Not least of Kentucky's trials was the po- 
litical discontent among her own people, 
which for many years lay like a blight upon 
her happiness and prosperity. Virginia's 
home necessities had prevented that common- 
wealth from giving much aid to the West 
during the Revolution, and at its conclusion 
her policy toward the Indians lacked the ag- 
gressive vigor for which Kentuckians pleaded. 
This was sufficient cause for dissatisfaction; 
but to this was added another of still greater 
importance. To gain the free navigation of 
the Mississippi, and thus to have an outlet 
to the sea, long appeared to be essential to 
Western progress. At first the Eastern men 
in Congress failed to realize this need, 
thereby greatly exasperating the over-moun- 
tain men. All manner of schemes were in 
the air, varying with men's temperaments 
and ambitions. Some, like Clark — who, by 
this time had, under the influence of intem- 
perance, greatly fallen in popular esteem, 
although not without followers — favored a 
filibustering expedition against the Spanish; 
203 



Daniel Boone 

and later (1788), when this did not appear 
practicable, were willing to join hands with 
Spain herself in the development of the con- 
tinental interior; and later still (1793-94), to 
help France oust Spain from Louisiana. 
Others wished Kentucky to be an independ- 
ent State, free to conduct her own affairs 
and make such foreign alliances as were 
needful; but Virginia and Congress did not 
release her. 

Interwoven with this more or less secret 
agitation for separating the West from the 
East were the corrupt intrigues of Spain, 
which might have been more successful had 
she pursued a persistent policy. Her agents 
— among whom were some Western pioneers 
who later found difficulty in explaining their 
conduct — craftily fanned the embers of dis- 
content, spread reports that Congress intend- 
ed to sacrifice to Spain the navigation rights 
of the West, distributed bribes, and were 
even accused of advising Spain to arm the 
Southern Indians in order to increase popu- 
lar uneasiness over existing conditions. 
Spain also offered large land grants to prom- 
inent American borderers who should lead 
204 



Kentucky's Path of Thorns 

colonies to settle beyond the Mississippi and 
become her subjects — a proposition which 
Clark once offered to accept, but did not; 
but of which we shall see that Daniel 
Boone, in his days of discontent, took ad- 
vantage, as did also a few other Kentucky 
pioneers. Ultimately Congress resolved nev- 
er to abandon its claim to the Mississippi 
(1787) ; and when the United States became 
strong, and the advantages of union were 
more clearly seen in the West, Kentucky be- 
came a member of the sisterhood of States 
(1792). 

It is estimated that, between 1783 and 
1790, fully fifteen hundred Kentuckians were 
massacred by Indians or taken captive to 
the savage towns; and the frontiers of Vir- 
ginia and Pennsylvania furnished their full 
quota to the long roll of victims. It is im- 
possible in so small a volume as this to 
mention all of even the principal incidents 
in the catalogue of assaults, heroic defenses, 
murders, burnings, torturings, escapes, re- 
prisals, and ambushes which constitute the 
lurid annals of this protracted border war- 
fare. The reader who has followed thus far 
205 



Daniel Boone 

this story of a strenuous life, will understand 
what these meant; to what deeds of daring 
they gave rise on the part of the men and 
women of the border ; what privation and an- 
guish they entailed. But let us not forget 
that neither race could claim, in this titanic 
struggle for the mastery of the hunting- 
grounds, a monopoly of courage or of cow- 
ardice, of brutality or of mercy. The In- 
dians suffered quite as keenly as the whites 
in the burning of their villages, crops, and 
supplies, and by the loss of life either in 
battle, by stealthy attack, or by treachery. 
The frontiersmen learned from the red men 
the lessons of forest warfare, and often out- 
did their tutors in ferocity. The contest be- 
tween civilization and savagery is, in the na- 
ture of things, unavoidable; the result also 
is foreordained. It is well for our peace of 
mind that, in the dark story of the Jugger- 
naut car, we do not inquire too closely into 
details. 

In 1785, goaded by numerous attacks on 
settlers and immigrants, Clark led a thou- 
sand men against the tribes on the Wabash ; 
but by this time he had lost control of the 
206 



Kentucky's Path of Thorns 

situation, and cowardice on the part of his 
troops, combined with lack of provisions, led 
to the practical failure of the expedition, 
although the Indians were much frightened. 

At the same time, Logan was more suc- 
cessful in an attack on the Shawnese of the 
Scioto Valley, who lost heavily in killed and 
prisoners. In neither of these expeditions 
does Boone appear to have taken part. 

The year 1787 was chiefly notable, in the 
history of the West, for the adoption by Con- 
gress of the Ordinance for the government 
of the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, 
wherein there dwelt perhaps seven thousand 
whites, mostly unprogressive French-Cana- 
dians, in small settlements flanking the Mis- 
sissippi and the Great Lakes, and in the Wa- 
bash Valley. Along the Ohio were scattered 
a few American hamlets, chiefly in Kentucky. 
In the same year the Indian war reached 
a height of fury which produced a panic 
throughout the border, and frantic appeals 
to Virginia, which brought insufficient aid. 
Boone, now a town trustee of Maysville, was 
sent to the legislature that autumn, and occu- 
pied his seat at Richmond from October until 
207 



Daniel Boone 

January. While there, we find him strongly 
complaining that the arms sent out to Ken- 
tucky by the State during the year were unfit 
for use, the swords being without scabbards, 
and the rifles without cartridge-boxes or 
flints. 

A child of the wilderness, Boone was law- 
abiding and loved peace, but he chafed at 
legal forms. He had, in various parts 
of Kentucky, preempted much land in the 
crude fashion of his day, both under the 
Transylvania Company and the later stat- 
utes of Virginia — how much, it would now be 
difficult to ascertain. In his old survey- 
books, still preserved in the Wisconsin State 
Historical Library, one finds numerous claim 
entries for himself, ranging from four hun- 
dred to ten thousand acres each — a tract 
which he called " Stockfield," near Boones- 
borough ; on Cartwright's Creek, a branch of 
Beech Fork of Salt River; on the Licking, 
Elkhorn, Boone's Creek, and elsewhere. The 
following is a specimen entry, dated " Aperel 
the 22 1785," recording a claim made " on 
the Bank of Cantuckey " ; it illustrates the 
loose surveying methods of the time : " Sur- 
208 



Kentucky's Path of Thorns 

vayd for Dal Boone 5000 acres begin at Bob- 
ert Camels N E Corner at at 2 White ashes 
and Buckeyes S 1200 p[oles] to 3 Shuger 
trees Ealm and walnut E 666 p to 6 Shuger 
trees and ash N 1200 p to a poplar and beech 
t W 666 p to the begining." 

It did not occur to our easy-going hero 
that any one would question his right to as 
much land as he cared to hold in a wilder- 
ness which he had done so much to bring to 
the attention of the world. But claim-jump- 
ers were no respecters of persons. It was 
discovered that Boone had carelessly failed 
to make any of his preemptions according 
to the letter of the law, leaving it open for 
any adventurer to reenter the choice claims 
which he had selected with the care of an 
expert, and to treat him as an interloper. 
Suits of ejectment followed one by one 
(1785-98), until in the end his acres were 
taken from him by the courts, and the good- 
hearted, simple fellow was sent adrift in the 
world absolutely landless. 

At first, when his broad acres began to 
melt away, the great hunter, careless of his 
possessions, appeared to exhibit no concern ; 
15 209 



Daniel Boone 

but the accumulation of his disasters, to- 
gether with the rapid growth of settlement 
upon the hunting-grounds, and doubtless 
some domestic nagging, developed within 
him an intensity of depression which led him 
to abandon his long-beloved Kentucky and 
vow never again to dwell within her limits. 
In the autumn of 1788, before his disasters 
were quite complete, this resolution was car- 
ried into effect; with wife and family, and 
what few worldly goods he possessed, he re- 
moved to Point Pleasant, at the junction of 
the Great Kanawha and the Ohio — in our 
day a quaint little court-house town in West 
Virginia. 



210 



CHAPTER XIV 

IN THE KANAWHA VALLEY 

During his early years on the Kanawha, 
Boone kept a small store at Point Pleasant. 
Later, he moved to the neighborhood of 
Charleston, where he was engaged in the 
usual variety of occupations — piloting immi- 
grants; as deputy surveyor of Kanawha 
County, surveying lands for settlers and 
speculators; taking small contracts for vic- 
tualing the militia, who were frequently 
called out to protect the country from Indian 
forays; and in hunting. Some of his expe- 
ditions took him to the north of the Ohio, 
where he had several narrow escapes from 
capture and death at the hands of the enemy, 
and even into his old haunts on the Big 
Sandy, the Licking, and the Kentucky. 

He traveled much, for a frontiersman. 

In 1788 he went with his wife and their son 

Nathan by horseback to the old Pennsylvania 

home in Berks County, where they spent a 

211 



Daniel Boone 

month with kinsfolk and friends. We find 
him in Maysville, on a business trip, during 
the year; indeed, there are evidences of nu- 
merous subsequent visits to that port. In 
May of the following year he was on the 
Monongahela River with a drove of horses 
for sale, Brownsville then being an important 
market for ginseng, horses, and cattle; and 
in the succeeding July he writes to a client, 
for whom he had done some surveying, that 
he would be in Philadelphia during the com- 
ing winter. 

In October, 1789, there came to him, as 
the result of a popular petition, the appoint- 
ment of lieutenant-colonel of Kanawha Coun- 
ty — the first military organization in the val- 
ley; and in other ways he was treated with 
marked distinction by the primitive border 
folk of the valley, both because of his bril- 
liant career in Kentucky and the fact that 
he was a surveyor and could write letters. 
One who knew him intimately at this time 
has left a pleasing description of the man, 
which will assist us in picturing him as he 
appeared to his new neighbors : " His large 
head, full chest, square shoulders, and stout 
212 



In the Kanawha Valley 

form are still impressed upon my mind. He 
was (I think) about five feet ten inches in 
height, and his weight say 175. He was 
solid in mind as well as in body, never friv- 
olous, thoughtless, or agitated; but was al- 
ways quiet, meditative, and impressive, un- 
pretentious, kind, and friendly in his manner. 
He came very much up to the idea we have 
of the old Grecian philosophers — particularly 
Diogenes." 

By the summer of 1790, Indian raids 
again became almost unbearable. Fresh 
robberies and murders were daily reported 
in Kentucky, and along the Ohio and the Wa- 
bash. The expedition of Major J. F. Ham- 
tramck, of the Federal Army, against the 
tribesmen on the Wabash, resulted in the 
burning of a few villages and the destruc- 
tion of much corn; but Colonel Josiah Har- 
mar's expedition in October against the 
towns on the Scioto and the St. Joseph, at 
the head of nearly 1,500 men, ended in failure 
and a crushing defeat, although the Indian 
losses were so great that the army was al- 
lowed to return to Cincinnati unmolested. 
Boone does not appear to have taken part in 
213 



Daniel Boone 

these operations, his militiamen probably 
being needed for home protection. 

The following year the General Govern- 
ment for the first time took the field against 
the Indians in earnest. For seven years it 
had attempted to bring the tribesmen to 
terms by means of treaties, but without avail. 
Boused to fury by the steady increase of set- 
tlement north as well as south of the Ohio, 
the savages were making life a torment to 
the borderers. War seemed alone the rem- 
edy. In June, General Charles Scott, of 
Kentucky, raided the Miami and Wabash 
Indians. Two months later General James 
Wilkinson, with five hundred Kentuckians, 
laid waste a Miami village and captured 
many prisoners. These were intended but 
to open the road for an expedition of far 
greater proportions. In October, Governor 
Arthur St. Clair, of the Northwest Territory, 
a broken-down man unequal to such a task, 
was despatched against the Miami towns 
with an ill-organized army of two thousand 
raw troops. Upon the fourth of November 
they were surprised near the principal Miami 
village ; hundreds of the men fled at the first 
214 



In the Kanawha Valley 

alarm, and of those who remained over six 
hundred fell during the engagement, while 
nearly three hundred were wounded. This 
disastrous termination of the campaign de- 
moralized the West and left the entire border 
again open to attack — an advantage which 
the scalping parties did not neglect. 

While this disaster was occurring, Boone 
was again sitting in the legislature at Rich- 
mond, where he represented Kanawha Coun- 
ty from October 17th to December 20th. The 
journals of the Assembly show him to have 
been a silent member, giving voice only in 
yea and nay; but he was placed upon two 
then important committees — religion, and 
propositions and licenses. It was voted to 
send ammunition for the militia on the Mo- 
nongahela and the Kanawha, who were to be 
called out for the defense of the frontier. 
Before leaving Richmond, Boone wrote as 
follows to the governor: 

"Monday 13th Deer 1791 

" Sir as sum purson Must Carry out the 
armantstion [ammunition] to Red Stone 
[Brownsville, Pa.,] if your Exclency should 
215 



Daniel Boone 

have thought me a proper purson I would 
undertake it on conditions I have the apint- 
ment to vitel the company at Kanhowway 
[Kanawha] so that I Could take Down the 
flowre as I paste that place I am your Ex- 
celenceys most obedent omble servant 

"Da l Boone." 

Five days later the contract was awarded 
to him; and we find among his papers re- 
ceipts, obtained at several places on his way 
home, for the lead and flints which he was 
to deliver to the various military centers. 
But the following May, Colonel George Clen- 
dennin sharply complains to the governor 
that the ammunition and rations which Boone 
was to have supplied to Captain Caperton's 
rangers had not yet been delivered, and that 
Clendennin was forced to purchase these sup- 
plies from others. It does not appear from 
the records how this matter was settled ; but 
as there seems to have been no official inquiry, 
the non-delivery was probably the result of a 
misunderstanding. 

At last, after a quarter of a century of 
bloodshed, the United States Government 
216 



In the Kanawha Valley 

was prepared to act in an effective manner. 
General Anthony Wayne — " Mad Anthony," 
of Stony Point — after spending a year and 
a half in reorganizing the Western army, 
established himself, in the winter of 1793-94, 
in a log fort at Greenville, eighty miles 
north of Cincinnati, and bnilt a strong out- 
post at Fort Recovery, on the scene of St. 
Clair's defeat. After resisting an attack on 
Fort Recovery made on the last day of June 
by over two thousand painted warriors from 
the Upper Lakes, he advanced with his 
legion of about three thousand well-disci- 
plined troops to the Maumee Valley and 
built Fort Defiance. Final battle was given 
to the tribesmen on the twentieth of August 
at Fallen Timbers. As the result of superb 
charges by infantry and cavalry, in forty 
minutes the Indian army was defeated and 
scattered. The backbone of savage opposi- 
tion to Northwestern settlement was broken, 
and at the treaty of Greenville in the follow- 
ing summer (1795) a peace was secured 
which remained unbroken for fifteen years. 

Wayne's great victory over the men of 
the wilderness gave new heart to Kentucky 
217 



Daniel Boone 

and the Northwest. The pioneers were ex- 
uberant in the expression of their joy. The 
long war, which had lasted practically since 
the mountains were first crossed by Boone 
and Finley, had been an almost constant 
strain upon the resources of the country. 
Now no longer pent up within palisades, and 
expecting nightly to be awakened by the 
whoops of savages to meet either slaughter 
or still more dreaded captivity, men could 
go forth without fear to open up forests, to 
cultivate fields, and peaceably to pursue the 
chase. 

To hunters like Boone, in particular, this 
great change in their lives was a matter for 
rejoicing. The Kanawha Valley was not as 
rich in game as he had hoped; but in Ken- 
tucky and Ohio were still large herds of buf- 
faloes and deer feeding on the cane-brake 
and the rank vegetation of the woods, and 
resorting to the numerous salt-licks which 
had as yet been uncontaminated by settle- 
ment. 

After the peace, Boone for several sea- 
sons devoted himself almost exclusively to 
hunting; in beaver-trapping he was espe- 
218 



In the Kanawha Valley 

cially successful, his favorite haunt for these 
animals being the neighboring Valley of 
the Gauley. His game he shared freely with 
neighbors, now fast increasing in num- 
bers, and the skins and furs were shipped 
to market, overland or by river, as of old. 

Upon removing to the Kanawha, he still 
had a few claims left in Kentucky, but suits 
for ejectment were pending over most of 
these. They were all decided against him, 
and the remaining lands were sold by the 
sheriff for taxes, the last of them going in 
1798. His failure to secure anything for his 
children to inherit, was to the last a source 
of sorrow to Boone. 

The Kanawha in time came to be distaste- 
ful to him. Settlements above and below were 
driving away the game, and sometimes his 
bag was slight; the crowding of population 
disturbed the serenity which he sought in 
deep forests; the nervous energy of these 
newcomers, and the avarice of some of them, 
annoyed his quiet, hospitable soul; and he 
fretted to be again free, thinking that civil- 
ization cost too much in wear and tear of 
spirit. 

219 



Daniel Boone 

Boone had long looked kindly toward the 
broad, practically unoccupied lands of forest 
and plain west of the Mississippi. Adven- 
turous hunters brought him glowing tales of 
buffaloes, grizzly bears, and beavers to be 
found there without number. Spain, fear- 
ing an assault upon her possessions from 
Canada, was just now making flattering 
offers to those American pioneers who 
should colonize her territory, and by casting 
their fortunes with her people strengthen 
them. This opportunity attracted the dis- 
appointed man; he thought the time ripe for 
making a move which should leave the crowd 
far behind, and comfortably establish him in 
a country wherein a hunter might, for many 
years to come, breathe fresh air and follow 
the chase untrammeled. 

In 1796, Daniel Morgan Boone, his oldest 
son, traveled with other adventurers in boats 
to St. Charles County, in eastern Missouri, 
where they took lands under certificates of 
cession from Charles Dehault Delassus, the 
Spanish lieutenant-governor of Upper Lou- 
isiana, resident at St. Louis. There were 
four families, all settling upon Femme Osage 
220 



In the Kanawha Valley 

Creek, six miles above its junction with the 
Missouri, some twenty-five miles above the 
town of St. Charles, and forty-five by water 
from St. Louis. 

Thither they were followed, apparently 
in the spring of 1799, by Daniel Boone and 
wife and their younger children. The de- 
parture of the great hunter, now in his sixty- 
fifth year, was the occasion for a general 
gathering of Kanawha pioneers at the home 
near Charleston. They came on foot, by 
horseback, and in canoe, from far and near, 
and bade him a farewell as solemnly affec- 
tionate as though he were departing for an- 
other world; indeed, Missouri then seemed 
almost as far away to the West Virginians 
as the Klondike is to dwellers in the Mis- 
sissippi basin to-day — a long journey by 
packhorse or by flatboat into foreign wilds, 
beyond the great waterway concerning which 
the imaginations of untraveled men often 
ran riot. 

The hegira of the Boones, from the junc- 
tion of the Elk and the Kanawha, was ac- 
complished by boats, into which were crowd- 
ed such of their scant herd of live stock as 
221 



Daniel Boone 

could be accommodated. Upon the way they 
stopped at Kentucky towns along the Ohio, 
either to visit friends or to obtain provisions, 
and attracted marked attention, for through- 
out the West Boone was, of course, one of 
the best-known men of his day. In Cincin- 
nati he was asked why, at his time of life, 
he left the comforts of an established home 
again to subject himself to the privations of 
the frontier. " Too crowded ! " he replied 
with feeling. " I want more elbow-room ! " 

Arriving at the little Kentucky colony on 
Femme Osage Creek, where the Spanish au- 
thorities had granted him a thousand ar- 
pents * of land abutting his son's estate upon 
the north, he settled down in a little log cabin 
erected largely by his own hands, for the 
fourth and last time as a pioneer. He was 
never again in the Kanawha Valley, and but 
twice in Kentucky — once to testify as to some 
old survey-marks made by him, and again to 
pay the debts which he had left when re- 
moving to Point Pleasant. 

* Equivalent to about 845 English acres. 

222 



CHAPTER XV 

A SERENE OLD AGE 

Missouri's sparse population at that time 
consisted largely of Frenchmen, who had 
taken easily to the yoke of Spain. For a 
people of easy-going disposition, theirs was 
an ideal existence. They led a patriarchal 
life, with their flocks and herds grazing upon 
a common pasture, and practised a crude ag- 
riculture whose returns were eked out by 
hunting in the limitless forests hard by. For 
companionship, the crude log cabins in the 
little settlements were assembled by the 
banks of the waterways, and there was small 
disposition to increase tillage beyond domes- 
tic necessities. There were practically no 
taxes to pay; military burdens sat lightly; 
the local syndic (or magistrate), the only 
government servant to be met outside of St. 
Louis, was sheriff, judge, jury, and com- 
mandant combined; there were no elections, 
for representative government was unknown ; 
223 



Daniel Boone 

the fur and lead trade with St. Louis was the 
sole commerce, and their vocabulary did not 
contain the words enterprise and speculation. 
Here was a paradise for a man of Boone's 
temperament, and through several years to 
come he was wont to declare that, next to his 
first long hunt in Kentucky, this was the hap- 
piest period of his life. On the eleventh of 
July, 1800, Delassus — a well-educated French 
gentleman, and a good judge of character — 
appointed him syndic for the Femme Osage 
district, a position which the old man held 
until the cession of Louisiana to the United 
States. This selection was not only because 
of his prominence among the settlers and his 
recognized honesty and fearlessness, but for 
the reason that he was one of the few among 
these unsophisticated folk who could make 
records. In a primitive community like the 
Femme Osage, Boone may well have ranked 
as a man of some education ; and certainly he 
wrote a bold, free hand, showing much prac- 
tise with the pen, although we have seen that 
his spelling and grammar might have been 
improved. When the government was turned 
over to President Jefferson's commissioner, 
224 




P o 

o ° 
32 --S 



P § 



A Serene Old Age 

Delassus delivered to that officer, by request, 
a detailed report upon the personality of his 
subordinates, and this is one of the entries 
in the list of syndics : " Mr. Boone, a respect- 
able old man, just and impartial, he has al- 
ready, since I appointed him, offered his res- 
ignation owing to his infirmities — believing I 
know his probity, I have induced him to re- 
main, in view of my confidence in him, for 
the public good." 

Boone's knowledge did not extend to law- 
books, but he had a strong sense of justice; 
and during his four years of office passed 
upon the petty disputes of his neighbors with 
such absolute fairness as to win popular ap- 
probation. His methods were as primitive 
and arbitrary as those of an Oriental pasha ; 
his penalties frequently consisted of lashes 
on the bare back " well laid on ; " he would 
observe no rules of evidence, saying he 
wished only to know the truth; and some- 
times both parties to a suit were compelled 
to divide the costs and begone. The French 
settlers had a fondness for taking their quar- 
rels to court; but the decisions of the good- 
hearted syndic of Femme Osage, based solely 
16 225 



Daniel Boone 

upon common sense in the rough, were re- 
spected as if coming from a supreme bench. 
His contemporaries said that in no other 
office ever held by the great rifleman did he 
give such evidence of undisguised satisfac- 
tion, or display so great dignity as in this 
role of magistrate. Showing newly arrived 
American immigrants to desirable tracts of 
land was one of his most agreeable duties; 
when thus tendering the hospitalities of the 
country to strangers, it was remarked that 
our patriarch played the Spanish " don " to 
perfection. 

In October, 1800, Spain agreed to deliver 
Louisiana to France; but the latter found 
it impracticable at that time to take posses- 
sion of the territory. By the treaty of April 
30, 1803, the United States, long eager to 
secure for the West the open navigation of 
the Mississippi, purchased the rights of 
France. It was necessary to go through the 
form, both in New Orleans and in St. Louis, 
of transfer by Spain to France, and then by 
France to the United States. The former 
ceremony took place in St. Louis, the capital 
of Upper Louisiana, upon the ninth of 
226 



A Serene Old Age 

March, 1804, and the latter upon the follow- 
ing day. Daniel Boone's authority as a 
Spanish magistrate ended when the flag of his 
adopted country was hauled down for the last 
time in the Valley of the Mississippi. 

The coming of the Americans into power 
was welcomed by few of the people of Lou- 
isiana. The French had slight patience with 
the land-grabbing temper of the " Yankees," 
who were eager to cut down the forests, to 
open up farms, to build towns, to extend 
commerce, to erect factories — to inaugurate 
a reign of noise and bustle and avarice. 
Neither did men of the Boone type — who had 
become Spanish subjects in order to avoid 
the crowds, to get and to keep cheap lands, 
to avoid taxes, to hunt big game, and to live 
a simple Arcadian life — at all enjoy this sud- 
den crossing of the Mississippi River, which 
they had vainly hoped to maintain as a per- 
petual barrier to so-called progress. 

Our hero soon had still greater reason 
for lamenting the advent of the new regime. 
His sad experience with lands in Kentucky 
had not taught him prudence. "When the 
United States commission came to examine 
227 



Daniel Boone 

the titles of Louisiana settlers to the claims 
which they held, it was discovered that Boone 
had failed properly to enter the tract which 
had been ceded to him by Delassus. The 
signature of the lieutenant-governor was 
sufficient to insure a temporary holding, but 
a permanent cession required the approval of 
the governor at New Orleans; this Boone 
failed to obtain, being misled, he afterward 
stated, by the assertion of Delassus that so 
important an officer as a syndic need not 
take such precautions, for he would never be 
disturbed. The commissioners, while highly 
respecting him, were regretfully obliged un- 
der the terms of the treaty to dispossess the 
old pioneer, who again found himself land- 
less. Six years later (1810) Congress tardily 
hearkened to his pathetic appeal, backed by 
the resolutions of the Kentucky legislature, 
and confirmed his Spanish grant in words of 
praise for " the man who has opened the way 
to millions of his fellow men." 

By the time he was seventy years old, 
Boone's skill as a hunter had somewhat les- 
sened. His eyes had lost their phenomenal 
strength; he could no longer perform those 
228 



A Serene Old Age 

nice feats of marksmanship for which in his 
prime he had attained wide celebrity, and 
rheumatism made him less agile. But as a 
trapper he was still unexcelled, and for many 
years made long trips into the Western wil- 
derness, even into far-off Kansas, and at 
least once (1814, when eighty years old) to 
the great game fields of the Yellowstone. 
Upon such expeditions, often lasting several 
months, he was accompanied by one or more 
of his sons, by his son-in-law Flanders Callo- 
way, or by an old Indian servant who was 
sworn to bring his master back to the Femme 
Osage dead or alive — for, curiously enough, 
this wandering son of the wilderness ever 
yearned for a burial near home. 

Beaver-skins, which were his chief desire, 
were then worth nine dollars each in the St. 
Louis market. He appears to have amassed a 
considerable sum from this source, and from 
the sale of his land grant to his sons, and in 
1810 we find him in Kentucky paying his debts. 
This accomplished, tradition says that he had 
remaining only fifty cents ; but he gloried in 
the fact that he was at last " square with the 
world," and returned to Missouri exultant. 
229 



Daniel Boone 

The War of 1812-15 brought Indian trou- 
bles to this new frontier, and some of the 
farm property of the younger Boones was 
destroyed in one of the savage forays. The 
old man fretted at his inability to assist in 
the militia organization, of which his sons 
Daniel Morgan and Nathan were conspicuous 
leaders; and the state of the border did not 
permit of peaceful hunting. In the midst of 
the war he deeply mourned the death of his 
wife (1813)— a woman of meek, generous, 
heroic nature, who had journeyed over the 
mountains with him from North Carolina, 
and upon his subsequent pilgrimages, shar- 
ing all his hardships and perils, a proper 
helpmeet in storm and calm. 

Penniless, and a widower, he now went to 
live with his sons, chiefly with Nathan, then 
forty-three years of age. After being first a 
hunter and explorer, and then an industrious 
and successful farmer, Nathan had won dis- 
tinction in the war just closed and entered the 
regular army, where he reached the rank of 
lieutenant-colonel and had a wide and thrill- 
ing experience in Indian fighting. Daniel 
Morgan is thought to have been the first set- 
230 




6 1 

2 ^ 

1-1 c 

H £ 
GO g 

£> w 

o 

zn 

W 
Z 

o 



A Serene Old Age 

tier in Kansas (1827) ; A. G. Boone, a grand- 
son, was one of the early settlers of Colorado, 
and prominently connected with Western In- 
dian treaties and Rocky Mountain explora- 
tion; and another grandson of the great 
Kentuckian was Kit Carson, the famous 
scout for Fremont's transcontinental expedi- 
tion. 

It was not long before the Yankee regime 
confirmed Boone's fears. The tide of immi- 
gration crossed the river, and rolling west- 
ward again passed the door of the great 
Kentuckian, driving off the game and 
monopolizing the hunting-grounds. Laws, 
courts, politics, speculation, and improve- 
ments were being talked about, to the bewil- 
derment of the French and the unconcealed 
disgust of the former syndic. Despite his 
great age, he talked strongly of moving still 
farther West, hoping to get beyond the reach 
of settlement; but his sons and neighbors 
persuaded him against it, and he was obliged 
to accommodate himself as best he might to 
the new conditions. In summer he would 
work on the now substantial and prosperous 
farms of his children, chopping trees for the 
231 



Daniel Boone 

winter's wood. But at the advent of autumn 
the spirit of restlessness seized him, when 
he would take his canoe, with some relative 
or his Indian servant, and disappear up the 
Missouri and its branches for weeks together. 
In 1816, we hear of him as being at Fort 
Osage, on his way to the Platte, " in the 
dress of the roughest, poorest hunter." Two 
years later, he writes to his son Daniel M. : 
" I intend by next autumn to take two or 
three whites and a party of Osage Indians 
to visit the salt mountains, lakes, and ponds 
and see these natural curiosities. They are 
about five or six hundred miles west of here " 
— presumably the rock salt in Indian Terri- 
tory; it is not known whether this trip was 
taken. He was greatly interested in Rocky 
Mountain exploration, then much talked of, 
and eagerly sought information regarding 
California; and was the cause of several 
young men migrating thither. A tale of 
new lands ever found in him a delighted 
listener. 

In these his declining years, although he 
had suffered much at the hands of the world, 
Boone's temperament, always kindly, mel- 
232 



A Serene Old Age 

lowed in tone. Decay came gradually, with- 
out palsy or pain; and, amid kind friends 
and an admiring public, his days passed in 
tranquillity. The following letter written by 
him at this period to his sister-in-law Sarah 
(Day) Boone, wife of his brother Samuel, is 
characteristic of the man, and gives to us, 
moreover, probably the only reliable account 
we possess of his religious views : 

" October the 19 th 1816 

" Deer Sister 

" With pleasuer I Kad a Later from your 
sun Samuel Boone who informs me that you 
are yett Liveing and in good health Consid- 
ing your age I wright to you to Latt you 
know I have Not forgot you and to inform 
you of my own Situation sence the Death of 
your Sister Rabacah I Leve with flanders 
Calaway But am at present at my sun Na- 
thans and in tolarabel halth you Can gass 
at my feilings by your own as we are So 
Near one age I Need Not write you of our 
satuation as Samuel Bradley or James 
grimes Can inform you of Every Surcom- 
stance Kelating to our famaly and how we 
233 



Daniel Boone 

Leve in this World and what Chance we shall 
have in the next we know Not for my part 
I am as ignerant as a Child all the Relegan I 
have to Love and fear god beleve in Jeses 
Christ Don all the good to my Nighbour and 
my self that I Can and Do as Little harm as 
I Can help and trust on gods marcy for the 
Eest and I Beleve god neve made a man of 
my prisepel to be Lost and I flater my self 
Deer sister that you are well on your way 
in Cristeanaty gave my Love to all your 
Childran and all my frends fearwell my 
Deer sister 

" Daniel Boone 

" Mrs. Sarah Boone 

"NBI Red a Later yesterday from sister 
Hanah peninton by hir grand sun Da 1 Ringe 
she and all hir Childran are Well at present 

" D B " 

Many strangers of distinction visited him 
at Nathan's home near the banks of the Mis- 
souri, and the public journals of the day 
always welcomed an anecdote of the great 
hunter's prowess — although most of the sto- 
ries which found their way into print were 
234 








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BOONE'S RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 

Reduced facsimile from original MS. in possession of Wisconsin State 
Historical Society. 



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A Serene Old Age 

either deliberate inventions or unconsciously 
exaggerated traditions. From published de- 
scriptions of the man by those who could 
discriminate, we may gain some idea of his 
appearance and manner. The great natural- 
ist Audubon once passed a night under a 
West Virginia roof in the same room with 
Boone, whose " extraordinary skill in the 
management of a rifle " is alluded to. He 
says : " The stature and general appearance 
of this wanderer of the Western forests ap- 
proached the gigantic. His chest was broad 
and prominent; his muscular powers dis- 
played themselves in every limb; his coun- 
tenance gave indication of his great courage, 
enterprise, and perseverance; and when he 
spoke the very motion of his lips brought the 
impression that whatever he uttered could 
not be otherwise than strictly true. I un- 
dressed, whilst he merely took off his hunt- 
ing-shirt and arranged a few folds of blan- 
kets on the floor, choosing rather to lie there, 
as he observed, than on the softest bed." 

Timothy Flint, one of his early biog- 
raphers, knew the " grand old man " in Mis- 
souri, and thus pictures him: "He was five 
235 



Daniel Boone 

feet ten inches in height, of a very erect, 
clean-limbed, and athletic form — admirably 
fitted in structure, muscle, temperament, and 
habit for the endurance of the labors, 
changes, and sufferings he underwent. He 
had what phrenologists would have consid- 
ered a model head — with a forehead pecul- 
iarly high, noble, and bold — thin and com- 
pressed lips — a mild, clear, blue eye — a large 
and prominent chin, and a general expres- 
sion of countenance in which fearlessness 
and courage sat enthroned, and which told 
the beholder at a glance what he had been 
and was formed to be." Flint declares that 
the busts, paintings, and engravings of 
Boone bear little resemblance to him. " They 
want the high port and noble daring of his 
countenance. . . . Never was old age more 
green, or gray hairs more graceful. His 
high, calm, bold forehead seemed converted 
by years into iron." 

Rev. James E. Welch, a revivalist, thus 
tells of Boone as he saw him at his meetings 
in 1818 : " He was rather low of stature, 
broad shoulders, high cheek-bones, very mild 
countenance, fair complexion, soft and quiet 
236 



A Serene Old Age 

in his manner, but little to say unless spoken 
to, amiable and kind in his feelings, very- 
fond of quiet retirement, of cool self-posses- 
sion and indomitable perseverance. He 
never made a profession of religion, but still 
was what the world calls a very moral man." 
In 1819, the year before the death of 
Boone, Chester Harding, an American por- 
trait-painter of some note, went out from St. 
Louis to make a life study of the aged Ken- 
tuckian. He found him at the time " living 
alone in a cabin, a part of an old blockhouse," 
evidently having escaped for a time from 
the conventionalities of home life, which 
palled upon him. The great man was roast- 
ing a steak of venison on the end of his ram- 
rod. He had a marvelous memory of the 
incidents of early days, although forgetful 
of passing events. " I asked him," says 
Harding, " if he never got lost in his long 
wanderings after game 1 He said ' No, I was 
never lost, but I was bewildered once for 
three days/ " The portrait is now in the pos- 
session of the painter's grandson, Mr. Wil- 
liam H. King, of Winnetka, 111. Harding says 
that he "never finished the drapery of the 
237 



Daniel Boone 

original picture, but copied the head, I think, 
at three different times." It is from this 
portrait (our frontispiece), made when 
Boone was an octogenarian, emaciated and 
feeble — although not appearing older than 
seventy years — that most others have been 
taken; thus giving us, as Flint says, but a 
shadowy notion of how the famous explorer 
looked in his prime. There is in existence, 
however, a portrait made by Audubon, from 
memory — a charming picture, representing 
Boone in middle life.* 

* The story of the original Harding portrait, as gathered 
from statements to the present writer by members of the 
painter's family, supplemented by letters of Harding himself 
to the late Lyman C. Draper, is an interesting one. The 
artist used for his portrait a piece of ordinary table oil-cloth. 
For many years the painting was in the capitol at Frankfort, 
Ky., "from the fact that it was hoped the State would buy 
it." But the State had meanwhile become possessed of an- 
other oil portrait painted about 1839 or 1840 by a Mr. Allen, 
of Harrodsburg, Ky. — an ideal sketch, of no special merit. 
Harding's portrait, apparently the only one of Boone painted 
from life, was not purchased, for the State did not wish to 
be at the expense of two paintings. Being upon a Western 
trip, in 1861, Harding, then an old man and a resident of 
Springfield, Mass., rescued his portrait, which was in bad con- 
dition, and carried it home. The process of restoration was 
necessarily a vigorous one. The artist writes (October 6, 1861) : 
"The picture had been banged about until the greater part 
of it was broken to pieces. . . . The head is as perfect as when 
238 



A Serene Old Age 

Serene and unworldly to the last, and 
with slight premonition of the end, Daniel 
Boone passed from this life upon the twenty- 
sixth of September, 1820, in the eighty-sixth 
year of his age. The event took place in the 
home of his son Nathan, said to be the first 
stone house built in Missouri. The conven- 
tion for drafting the first constitution of the 
new State was then in session in St. Louis. 
Upon learning the news, the commonwealth- 
builders adjourned for the day in respect 
to his memory ; and as a further mark of re- 
gard wore crape on their left arms for twenty 
days. The St. Louis Gazette, in formally 
announcing his death, said : " Colonel Boone 
was a man of common stature, of great en- 
it was painted, in color, though there are some small, almost 
imperceptible, cracks in it." The head and neck, down to 
the shirt-collar, were cut out and pasted upon a full -sized can- 
vas; on this, Harding had "a very skilful artist" repaint 
the bust, drapery, and background, under the former's imme- 
diate direction. The picture in the present state is, there- 
fore, a composite. The joining shows plainly in most 
lights. Upon the completion of the work, Harding offered 
to sell it to Draper, but the negotiation fell through. The 
restored portrait was then presented by the artist to his son- 
in-law, John L. King, of Springfield, Mass., and in due 
course it came into the possession of the latter's son, the pres- 
ent owner. 

239 



Daniel Boone 

terprise, strong intellect, amiable disposition, 
and inviolable integrity — he died universally 
regretted by all who knew him. . . . Such 
is the veneration for his name and charac- 
ter." 

Pursuant to his oft-repeated request, he 
was buried by the side of his wife, upon the 
bank of Teugue Creek, about a mile from the 
Missouri. There, in sight of the great river 
of the new West, the two founders of Boones- 
borough rested peacefully. Their graves 
were, however, neglected until 1845, when the 
legislature of Kentucky made av strong ap- 
peal to the people of Missouri to allow the 
bones to be removed to Frankfort, where, it 
was promised, they should be surmounted 
by a fitting monument. The eloquence of 
Kentucky's commissioners succeeded in over- 
coming the strong reluctance of the Mis- 
sourians, and such fragments as had not 
been resolved into dust were removed amid 
much display. But in their new abiding- 
place they were again the victims of indif- 
ference; it was not until 1880, thirty-five 
years later, that the present monument was 
erected. 

240 




BOONE'S MONUMENT AT FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY. 



A Serene Old Age 

We have seen that Daniel Boone was 
neither the first explorer nor the first settler 
of Kentucky. The trans-Alleghany wilds 
had been trodden by many before him ; even 
he was piloted through Cumberland Gap by 
Finley, and Harrodsburg has nearly a year's 
priority over Boonesborough. He had not 
the intellect of Clark or of Logan, and his 
services in the defense of the country were 
of less importance than theirs. He was not 
a constructive agent of civilization. But in 
the minds of most Americans there is a pa- 
thetic, romantic interest attaching to Boone 
that is associated with few if any others of 
the early Kentuckians. His migrations in 
the vanguard of settlement into North Caro- 
lina, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Missouri, 
each in their turn; his heroic wanderings in 
search of game and fresh lands ; his activity 
and numerous thrilling adventures during 
nearly a half -century of border warfare ; his 
successive failures to acquire a legal foothold 
in the wilderness to which he had piloted 
others; his persistent efforts to escape the 
civilization of which he had been the fore- 
runner ; his sunny temper amid trials of the 
17 241 



Daniel Boone 

sort that made of Clark a plotter and a misan- 
thrope ; his sterling integrity ; his serene old 
age — all these have conspired to make for 
Daniel Boone a place in American history as 
one of the most lovable and picturesque of 
our popular heroes ; indeed, the typical back- 
woodsman of the trans- Alleghany region. 



242 



INDEX 



ABI 

ABINGDON (Pa.), Boones in, 4. 
Alleghany Mountains, bound 
French claims, 19, 60 ; border 
Valley of Virginia, 14 ; pioneers 
on eastern foot-hills, 27, 35, 69 
barrier to Western advance, 13 
Berkeley's exploration, 85, 86 
crossed by Americans, 20 ; in 
Dunmore's War, 105 ; first gov- 
ernment west of, 122, 123. 

Allen, , paints Boone's por- 
trait, 238. 

Amherst, Gen. Jeffrey, of British 
Army, 44. 

Appalachian Mountains, troughs 
of, 13-15. See also Alleghany 
Mountains. 

Arkansas, Virginia hunters in, 89, 
90. 

Ashton, Captain, killed by Indians, 
185. 

Audubon, John James, knew 
Boone, 10, 235, 238. 

BAKER, John, explores Ken- 
tucky, 66. 

Barbour, , hunts in Ken- 
tucky, 89, 90. 

Baton Rouge (La.), North Carolin- 
ians near, 66. 

Batts, Thomas, on New River, 86. 

Bears, 18, 56, 58, 67, 75, 76, 92, 133, 
197. 

Beaver Creek, Boone on, 68. 



BOO 

Beavers, 18, 74, 229. 

Benton, , Kentucky pioneer, 

125. 

Berkeley, Gov. William, in Alle- 
ghanies, 85, 86. 

Berks County (Pa.), Boones in, 4- 
15, 211, 212. 

Black Fish, Shawnese chief, 148- 
157, 161-167. 

Bledsoe, Maj. Anthony, militia 
leader, 134. 

Blue Ridge, borders Valley of Vir- 
ginia, 14, 15 ; crossed by Boone, 
72. 

Boiling Spring (Ky.), founded, 121. 
See also Fort Boiling Spring. 

Boone, A. G., grandson of Daniel, 
231. 

— , Benjamin, son of George 1 , 1. 

— , Daniel, Dutch painter, 7. 

— , Daniel, born, 6 ; youth, 7-15 ; 
training, 10-12 ; education, 199, 
224 ; moves to Yadkin, 16, 17 ; 
explores Yadkin region, 62, G3 ; 
in French and Indian War, 21- 
23 ; marriage, 25-27, 36 ; list of 
children, 43 ; life on the Yadkin, 
17-20, 28-36 ; flees to Virginia, 
43, 55 ; returns to Yadkin, 50, 55 ; 
visits Florida, 64, 65 ; early Ken- 
tucky explorations, 24, 69, 70 ; 
trains James, 63 ; discontented 
in North Carolina, 67-69 ; hunts 
in Tennessee, 55, 56 ; in Cherokee 



243 



Daniel Boone 



BOO 
War, 50, 55, 56 ; carves name on 
trees, 56 ; captures criminals, 
62 ; opinion of Indians, 52, 59 ; 
piloted by Finley, 218, 241 ; 
crosses Cumberland Gap, ix, 89, 

200, 218 ; long hunt in Kentucky, 
72-84, 86, 94-97, 100, 224 ; starts 
for Kentucky, 101-103 ; on Clinch, 
103 ; in Dunmore's War, 105-112 ; 
pioneer for Transylvania Com- 
pany, 114-117 ; settles Boones- 
borough, 117-119, 124, 125; de- 
fends Boonesborough, 137, 138, 
141, 142 ; capture of daughter, 
134-136 ; captured by Shawnese, 
146-158 ; returns to Kentucky, 
174-178 ; hunts for settlers, 176 ; 
robbed of money, 176, 177 ; mili- 
tia leader, 112, 134, 180, 212, 213 ; 
Indian expeditions, 181, 182, 187- 
189 ; pilot for immigrants, 198, 
211, 226 ; leaves Boonesborough, 
180 ; justice of peace, 143 ; sur- 
veyor, 120, 121, 129, 181, 193, 198, 
208, 209, 211, 212; member of 
legislature, 182, 183, 215 ; revisits 
Pennsylvania, 211, 212 ; loses 
Kentucky lands, 208-210, 219 ; at 
Maysville, 201, 202, 207-210 ; river 
trader, 201, 202 ; life on Kanawha, 
210-222; "autobiography, 1 ' 153, 
169, 199 ; ships furs to East, 197, 

201, 202 ; moves to Missouri, 205, 
219-222 ; Spanish syndic, 224-227 ; 
hunts in Missouri, 220, 229-232 ; 
laments growth of settlement, 
227, 231 ; loses Spanish grant, 
227, 228; pays debts, 229; old 
age, 228-241 ; death and burial, 
239, 240 ; character, vii-ix, 200, 

232, 233, 241, 242 ; religious views, 

233, 234; specimen letters, 193- 
195, 233-235 ; descriptions of, 109, 
110, 212-214, 225, 235-237, 239, 240 ; 
not first in Kentucky, 85 ; Byron's 

200 ; nature of services, 



BOO 

200 ; extent of fame, 198, 199, 
222, 233-235 ; portraits, 237-239 ; 
Draper's proposed biography, 
ix, x. 

Boone, Mrs. Daniel, marriage, 25- 
27, 36 ; life on Yadkin, 29, 30 ; 
flees to Virginia, 43 ; scorns Flor- 
ida, 65 ; in Kentucky, 125, 158, 168, 

201 ; death and burial, 230, 240. 
— , Daniel Morgan, son of Daniel, 

43 ; in Missouri, 220, 230, 232 ; in 
Kansas, 230, 231. 

— , Edward, brother of Daniel, 7 ; 
killed by Indians, 7, 174, 181. 

— , Elizabeth, sister of Daniel, 7 

— , George 1 , grandfather of Daniel, 
early life, 1-3 ; moves to Penn- 
sylvania, 3, 4, 102 ; death, 5. 

— , George 2 , son of foregoing, born, 
1 ; in Pennsylvania, 2-5. 

— , George 3 , brother of Daniel, 7. 

— , Hannah, sister of Daniel, 7. 

— , Israel 1 , brother of Daniel, 7, 12. 

— , Israel 2 , son of Daniel, 43 ; killed 
by Indians, 189. 

— , James 1 , son of George 1 , 1, 15. 

— , James 2 , son of Daniel, 43 ; 
trained as hunter, 63 ; killed by 
Indians, 102, 103. 

— , Jemima, daughter of Daniel, 
43 ; captured by Indians, 134- 
136 ; marries Flanders Calloway, 
158. 

— , John, son of George 1 , 1, 2, 15. 

— , John B., son of Daniel, 43. 

— , Jonathan, brother of Daniel, 7. 

— , Joseph, son of George 1 , 1. 

— , Lavinia, daughter of Daniel, 43. 

— , Mary 1 , daughter of George 1 , 1. 

— , Mary 2 , sister of Daniel, 7. 

— , Nathan, son of Daniel, 43 ; vis- 
its Pennsylvania, 211, 212 ; in 
Missouri, 230, 2:33, 239. 

— , Rebecca, daughter of Daniel, 
43. 

— , Samuel 1 , son of George 1 , 1. 



2±4 



Index 



BOO 

Boone, Samuel 2 , brother of Daniel, 
7, 10 ; marries Sarah Day, 233. 

— , Samuel 3 , son of foregoing, 233. 

— , Sarah 1 , daughter of George 1 , 
born, 1 ; moves to Pennsylvania, 
2, 3, marries Jacob Stover, 4, 5. 

— , Sarah 2 , sister of Daniel, 7, 12. 

— , Sarah Day, letter from Daniel, 
233. See also Sarah Day. 

— , Squire 1 , father of Daniel, born, 
1 ; moves to Pennsylvania, 2, 3 ; 
marriage, 5 ; life in Pennsylva- 
nia, 5-15 ; expelled by Quakers, 
12 ; moves to Yadkin, 15-17 ; 
flees to Virginia, 43 ; returns to 
Yadkin, 59 ; life on Yadkin, 25» 
27 ; death, 59. 

— , Squire 2 , brother of Daniel, 7 ; 
on Big Sandy, 69 ; visits Ken- 
tucky, 72, 78-81, 84, 94-97, 100 ; at 
Boonesborough, 117, 122, 125, 129, 
158, 162. 

— , Susannah, daughter of Daniel, 
43. 

— family, in Cherokee War, 43, 44 ; 
in Kentucky, 43 ; in Missouri, 44, 
220-241. 

Boone's Creek (Ky.), Boone on, 
180, 208. 

— Creek (Tenn.), Boone on, 55, 
56. 

— Station. See Fort Boone. 
Boonesborough (Ky.), 118, 119, 121, 

124-128, 240, 241 ; Transylvania 
convention at, 122, 123 ; capture 
of girls, 134-136 ; in Revolu- 
tionary War, 137, 139, 141-143, 
148, 149, 154, 156-158, 184; be- 
sieged by Indians, 159-167, 169, 
186 ; Boone's return to, 174-180, 
208, 209 ; incorporated, 174, 175 ; 
left by Boone, 180 ; present condi- 
tion, 175 ; Ranck's monograph, x. 

Bouquet, Gen. Henry, campaign 
of, 88 ; treats with Indians, 103, 

. 104. 



CAL 
Bourbon County (Ky.), Boone in, 

177, 181. 
Bowman, Col. John, Kentucky 

pioneer, 125 ; militia leader, 134 ; 

in Revolutionary War, 143-145, 

158, 170, 178. 
Braddock, Gen. Edward, defeated 

by French, 21-23, 25, 50, 71, 81, 

152. 
Bradley, Edward, Kentucky pio- 
neer, 117. 
— , Samuel, mentioned by Boone, 

233. 
Bradninch (Eng.), early home of 

Boones, 1-3. 
Bridges, James, Kentucky pioneer, 

117. 
Brownsville (Pa.), Boone at, 212, 

215, 216. 
Bryan, Joseph, father-in-law of 

Boone, 25. 
— , Rebecca. See Mrs. Daniel 

Boone. 
— family, Yadkin pioneers, 24-27, 

36, 168 ; in Cherokee War, 43, 44; 

in Kentucky, 101, 102, 125. 
Buffaloes, 17, 18, 23, 67, 69, 70, 72, 

75, 76, 90, 92, 95, 118, 133, 158, 197. 
Bush, William, Kentucky pioneer, 

117. 
Byrd, Colonel, of British Army, 178. 
— , Col. William, raids Cherokees, 

49, 50, 56. 
Byron, George Noel Gordon, Lord, 

lines on Boone, 200. 

/^lAHOKLA (111.), won by Clark, 

V-^ 159. 

Caldwell, Capt. William, raids Ken- 
tucky, 186. 

California, Boone interested in, 232. 

Calk, William, Kentucky pioneer, 
194. 

Calloway, Betsey, captured by In- 
dians, 135, 136 ; marries Samuel 
Henderson, 143. 



245 



Daniel Boone 



CAL 

Calloway, Fanny, captured by In- 
dians, 135, 136. 

— , Flanders, marries Jemima 
Boone, 158 ; in Missouri, 229, 233. 

— , Col. Richard, Kentucky pioneer, 
117 ; daughters captured, 135, 
136 ; accuses Boone, 165-167. 

Campbell, Maj. Arthur, in Dun- 
more's War, 105, 108, 109; in 
Kentucky, 126. 

— , Ensign John, in Dunmore's 
War, 109. 

— (Camel), Robert, Kentucky pio- 
neer, 209. 

— family, Kentucky pioneers, 125 # 
Camp Madison (Ky.), 172. 
Caperton, Captain, militia leader, 

216. 
Captain Jack, Indian hero, 52. 
Carson, Kit, grandson of Boone, 

231. 
Cartwrighfs Creek, Boone on, 208. 
Castle's- woods, Boone at, 109. 
Catawba Indians, relations with 

Yadkin settlers, 18, 19, 22, 36, 42 ; 

allies of whites, 45 ; raided by 

Northern Indians, 96. 
Cattle-raising, on frontier, 8, 9, 15, 

16, 30, 31, 35, 36, 57, 58, 62, 69, 

102, 122, 127, 128, 131, 132, 140, 162, 

163, 173, 197, 223. 
Charleston (S. C), in Cherokee 

War, 43, 46 ; Boone at, 169. 

— (W. Va.), Boone near, 211, 221. 

Charlottesville (Va.), Boone at, 182. 

Cherokee Indians, raided by North- 
ern tribes, 96 ; relations with 
Yadkin settlers, 18, 19, 22 ; war 
with whites, 36-56, 60, 69 ; plun- 
der Kentucky hunters, 90, 91, 93 ; 
treaty with settlers, 99 ; in Dun- 
more's War, 104, 105, 112, 113 ; in 
Transylvania cession, 113-116 ; in 
Revolutionary War, 132, 139-144, 
160-167 ; inflamed by Spain, 202, 
204. 



CUL 

Chickasaw Indians, in Revolution- 
ary War, 179. 

Chillicothe (Ohio), Boone near, 158. 

— , Little, Shawnese town, 151, 152, 
156, 166. 

— , Old, Shawnese town, 170. 

Chocktaw Indians, rob hunters, 
67. 

Christian family, Kentucky pio- 
neers, 125. 

Cincinnati, founded, 199 ; Clark at, 
190 ; Harmar, 213 ; Boone, 222 ; 
Wayne, 218. 

Clark, George Rogers, arrival in 
Kentucky, 104, 125 ; delegate to 
Virginia, 133 ; in Dunmore's 
War, 107 ; in Revolutionary War, 
125, 134, 138, 139, 158, 159, 169, 178, 
179, 181, 183, 190 ; Wabash expe- 
dition, 206, 207 ; separatist in- 
trigues, 203-205, 242; misanthrop- 
ic, vii ; character of services, vii, 
241. 

Clendennin, Col. George, militia 
leader, 216. 

Clinch Mountain, crossed by 
Boone, 73. 

Coburn, Samuel, Kentucky pio- 
neer, 117. 

Colorado, A. G. Boone in, 231. 

Cooley, William, accompanies 
Boone, 72-79. 

Cornstalk, Shawnese chief , 110, 111. 

Cornwallis, Lord, imprisons Boone, 
182, 183. 

Covington (Ky.), Bowman at, 170. 

Crabtree, Capt. Jacob, Kentucky 
pioneer, 117. 

Crane, Sergt. John, in Dunmore's 
War, 109. 

Creek Indians, inflamed by Spain, 
202, 204. 

Crime, on frontier, 33, 34, 60-62. 

Croghan, George, fur- trader, 23. 

Culpeper County (Va.), Boone in, 
43. 



246 



Index 



CUM 

Cumberland Gap, crossed by Vir- 
ginia hunters, 90, 92 ; Finley, 23, 
88 ; Boone, vii, 72, 73, 88, 89, 95, 
125, 230, 241 ; in Dunmore's War, 
105. See also Wilderness Road. 

— Mountains, bound Kentucky, 
70, 91. 

Cutbirth, Benjamin, friend of 
Boone, 66 ; in Kentucky, 66, 67, 
101. 

DANVILLE (Ky.), district capi- 
tal, 195. 

Davie County (N. C), Boones in, 
27. 

Dawson, Miss Marjory, aid ac- 
knowledged, xi. 

Day, Rebecca, 233. 

— , Sarah, marries Samuel Boone, 
10 ; teaches Daniel, 10, 11. 

Deer, 18, 58, 63, 67, 72-74, 76, 92, 
133, 197. 

Delassus, Charles Dehault, lieuten- 
ant-governorof UpperLouisiana, 
220, 224, 225, 228. 

Delaware Indians, Christian con- 
verts, 7, 8 ; in Revolutionary 
War, 156, 157, 160-167. 

Detroit, Boone at, 154-157, 166, 177 ; 
British headquarters, 178, 183, 
192. 

District of Columbia, Squire Boone 
in, 43. 

Doddridge, Joseph, Notes on Vir- 
ginia, 39-41. 

Drake, Joseph, heads Long Hunt- 
ers, 91, 92. 

Draper, Lyman Copeland, gathers 
Boone manuscripts, ix, x ; let- 
ters from Harding, 238, 239. 

Dress, of pioneers, 28, 29. 

Dunkin, Sergt. John, in Dunmore's 
War, 109. 

Dunmore, Lord, commissions 
Boone, 155, 156 ; raids Indians, 
105-112 ; opposes Henderson, 116. 



FLI 
Durrett, Col. Reuben T., aid ac- 
knowledged, x. 
Dutchman's Creek, Boones on, 17. 

TT^AGLE Creek, in Indian cam- 

-*— i paign, 194. 

Education, on frontier, 10, 11, 27, 
53, 224. 

Elk, 72, 75, 76, 92. 

English, in French and Indian 
War, 19-23 ; defeat French, 59, 
60 ; employ French woodsmen, 
98 ; fur trade of, 42 ; oppose 
American settlement, 98, 99, 202 ; 
in Revolutionary War, 132, 149, 
154-156, 159, 165-167, 171, 178, 186, 
190, 192 ; designs on Louisiana, 
220. 

Estill, Capt. James, killed by In- 
dians, 184, 185. 

— County (Ky.), Boone in, 73. 

Etting, J. Marx, aid acknowledged, 
xi. 

Exeter township (Pa.), Boones in, 
5-7. 

FAYETTE County (Ky.), organ- 
ized, 179-182; raided by In- 
dians, 186 ; surveying, 181, 192, 
193. 

Fallen Timbers, battle of, 217, 218. 

Falls of Ohio. See Louisville. 

Femme Osage Creek, Boone on, 
220-222, 224, 225, 229. 

Filson, John, writes Boone's " au- 
tobiography," 153, 199, 200. 

Fincastle County (Va.), includes 
Kentucky, 123, 195. 

Finley, John, early exploration of 
Kentucky, 22, 23, 87, 88 ; tells 
Boone thereof, 22-24, 69, 71 ; 
pilots Boone thither, vii, 71-79, 
88, 200, 218, 241. 

Fishing Creek, Clark on, 104. 

Flint, Timothy, describes Boone, 



247 



Daniel Boone 



FLO 

Florida, Virginia hunters in, 89 ; 
Boone, 64, 65. 

Floyd, Capt. John, on state of fron- 
tier, 136, 137 ; in Revolutionary 
War, 138, 180. 

Forbes, Gen. John, campaign of, 
88. 

Fort Blackmore, in Dunmore's 
War, 108. 

— Boiling Spring, in Revolutionary 
War, 137. 

— Boone (Boone's Station), built, 
180. 

— Bryan (Ky.), in Revolutionary 
War, 137, 185-188. 

— Defiance, Wayne at, 217. 

— Dobbs, erected, 37-39 ; in Cher- 
okee War, 41-44, 55. 

— Duquesne. See Pittsburg. 

— Elk Garden, in Dunmore's War, 
109. 

— Estill, attacked by Indians, 184. 

— Glade Hollow, in Dunmore's 
War, 109. 

— Harrod. See Foi't Boiling 
Spring. 

— Hinkson, in Revolutionary War, 
137. 

— Huston (Ky.), in Revolutionary 
War, 137. 

— Jefferson, built by Clark, 179. 

— Logan, in Revolutionary War, 
137, 139, 164, 165. 

— Loudon, erected, 37 ; in Chero- 
kee War, 44, 46, 47. 

— McClellan, in Revolutionary 
War, 137, 139. 

— McConnell, in Revolutionary 
War, 188. 

— McGee, in Revolutionary War, 
188. 

— Maiden Spring, in Dunmore's 
War, 109. 

— Martin, besieged, 178. 

— Massac, French at, 41, 42, 48. 

— Moore, in Dunmore's War, 108. 



FUR 

Fort Nelson. See Louisville. 

— Osage, Boone at, 232. 

— Pitt. See Pittsburg. 

— Price (Ky.), in Revolutionary 
War, 139. 

— Prince George, in Cherokee 
War, 37, 44, 48. 

— Recovery, Wayne at, 217. 

— Robinson, erected, 50. 

— Ruddell, founded, 121 ; besieged, 
178. 

— Russell, in Dunmore's War, 108. 

— Stanwix, treaty of, 99, 114, 121. 

— Strode, militia rendezvous, 194. 

— Whitley, in Revolutionary War, 
137. 

— Whitton (Big Crab Orchard), in 
Dunmore's War, 109. 

Forts on frontier, described, 37-41 ; 
methods of defense, 142, 143. 

Frankfort (Ky.), 121 ; Boone por- 
trait at, 238 ; Boone's grave, 240. 

Fredericksburg (Va.), Boone in, 43. 

Frelinghuysen, Theodore, on Cher- 
okee bravery, 51. 

Fremont, Gen. John C, explorer, 
231. 

French, introduce knives, 111 ; 
early knowledge of Kentucky, 
85-87 ; in French and Indian 
War, 19-23, 66 ; inflame Southern 
Indians, 36, 37, 41, 42, 48, 51, 98 ; 
fall of New France, 48, 60 ; hunt- 
ing in Kentucky, 95, 101, 197 ; 
employed by English, 98, 148, 
159, 161, 171, 178 ; in Northwest 
Territory, 207 ; in Missouri, 223- 
226, 231 ; intrigue against Spain, 
204 ; cede Louisiana to United 
States, 226, 227. 

— Creek, French on, 20. 

Fur trade, near Philadelphia, 4, 
10 ; French and English rivalry, 
19, 20 ; Ohio Company, 20, 24, 
87 ; Finley, 22, 23, 71, 83, 87, 88 ; 
Croghan, 23 ; with Southern In- 



248 



Index 



GAS 
dians, 18, 42, 44, 58, 60, 132, 133 ; 
roving of traders, 67, 69 ; Eng- 
lish operations, 87, 99, 190 ; char- 
acter of traders, 60, 132, 133 ; 
autumnal caravans, 31, 58, 197 ; 
Boone's operations, 201, 202, 219. 

GASS, Capt. David, on Clinch, 
103 ; Kentucky pioneer, 117. 

Gauntlet-running, described, 154, 
155. 

Georgetown (D. C), Squire Boone 
in, 43. 

Georgia, Virginia hunters in, 91 ; 
Boone, 65 ; increase of settle- 
ment, 97. 

Germans, among frontiersmen, 4, 
5, 14, 196. 

Girty, George, met by Boone, 
148. 

— , James, met by Boone, 148. 

— , Simon, American renegade, 
148, 186. 

Gist, Christopher, explores Ken- 
tucky, 87, 100. 

Grant, Lieut.-Col. James, raids 
Cherokees, 48-50. 

Granville, Earl, North Carolina 
landholder, 68. 

Great Lakes, French posts on. 19. 

— Meadows, defeat of Washing- 
ton, 20. 

Greenville (Ohio), treaty of, 217. 

Grimes, James, mentioned by 
Boone, 233. 

Gwynedd township (Pa.), Boones 
in, 4-6. 

HAMILTON, Gov. Henry, 149, 
150 ; relations with Boone, 
154-156, 161, 166 ; imprisoned, 169, 
177. 
Hamtramck, Maj. J. F., raids In- 
dians, 213. 
Harding, Chester, paints Boone's 
portrait, 237-239. 



HOL 

Harmar, Col. Josiah, raids Indians, 
213. 

Harper's Ferry (Va.), Boones at, 16. 

Harrisonburg (Va.), Boones near, 
16. 

Harrod, Capt. James, in Revo- 
lutionary War, 134, 138, 176. 

Harrodsburg, founded, vii, 121, 
131, 238, 241 ; convention at, 133 ; 
in Revolutionary War, 137, 139, 
142, 143, 164 ; seat of Lincoln 
County, 179. 

Hart, David, of Transylvania Com- 
pany, 114. 

— , John, Kentucky pioneer, 117. 

— , Nathaniel, of Transylvania 
Company, 114, 176, 177. 

— , Thomas, of Transylvania Com- 
pany, 114, 176, 177. 

Hays, William, Boone's son-in-law, 
117. 

— , Mrs. William, daughter of 
Boone, 117. 

Hazelrigg. Captain, letters from 
Boone, 193-195. 

Hempinstall, Abraham, hunts in 
Kentucky, 89, 90. 

Henderson, Col. Richard, settles 
Kentucky, 113-115, 118-120, 122- 
124, 126, 129, 133. 

— , Samuel, marries Betsey Cal- 
loway, 143. 

Hennepin, Father Louis, explora- 
tions of, 86. 

Hewett, Gen. Fayette, aid acknowl- 
edged, xi. 

Hicks, William, Kentucky pioneer, 
117. 

Hill, William, accompanies Boone, 
69, 70. 

Hinkson, Maj. John, Kentucky 
pioneer, 121. 

Hite, Isaac, Kentucky pioneer, 125. 

Holden, Capt. Joseph, accompa- 
nies Boone, 72-77 ; defeated by 
Indians, 185. 



249 



Daniel Boone 



HOW 

Howard, John, in Kentucky, 87. 

Hunting, early practised by Boone, 
9-12, 16 ; in Yadkin country, 17, 
18, 28-34, 55, 58, 62, 63 ; early 
trail through Cumberland Gap, 
73, 89 ; in Tennessee, 55-57; abun- 
dant in Kentucky, 76, 98, 132, 
218 ; Long Hunters, 91-95 ; 
Boone's long Kentucky hunt, 
72-84, 86, 94-97; Boone's con- 
temporaries, 87-91 ; after Revo- 
lution, in Kentucky, 197, 211, 
218; in Kanawha Valley, 218, 
219; in Missouri, 220, 229-232; 
profits of, 57-59, 73-75, 229 ; meth- 
ods employed, 75, 76 ; camps de- 
scribed, 63, 64 ; game decreas- 
ing, 62, 97, 124, 219. See also the 
several animals. 



TBERVILLE, Lemoyne d\ ex- 

■*■ plorations of, 86. 

Illinois, French in, 42 ; English, 
87. 

Indian Territory, mentioned by 
Boone, 232. 

Indians, understood by Boone, viii, 
7, 8, 10 ; influence of women, 46 ; 
lodge life, 153 ; adopt captives, 
152, 153 ; affected by fur trade, 
133 ; barrier to settlement, 98 ; 
in eastern Pennsylvania, 4, 7, 8, 
10, 13 ; infest mountain valleys, 
14, 16 ; in French and Indian 
War, 19-23, 36-56; raid Yadkin 
region, 27, 36-56 ; raid Kentucky, 
126, 127 ; warrior's paths, 73, 76, 
79, 180 ; gauntlet-running, 154, 
155 ; methods of warfare, 39-41, 
52-54, 111, 140, 141, 160-167, 186- 
189, 205 ; ethics of border war- 
fare, 50-54, 206 ; finally quieted 
in Northwest, 216-218. See also 
the several tribes. 

Irish, among frontiersmen, 14, 24, 
196. 

250 



KEN 
Iron Mountain, crossed by Boone, 

73. 
Iroquois, in Kentucky, 99, 113, 114. 

JEFFERSON, Thomas, governor 
of Virginia, 182; President, 

224. 
Jefferson County (Ky.), organized, 

179-181 ; in Revolutionary War, 

188 ; Lincolns in, 174. 
Jennings, Edmund, Kentucky 

pioneer, 117. 
Jessamine County (Ky.), Boone in, 

101. 
Jesuits, seek Mississippi River, 86. 
Johnson, Andrew, escapes from 

Indians, 157. 
— , Thomas, Kentucky pioneer, 117. 
Joliet, Louis, discovers Mississippi, 



Jones, Capt. John Gabriel, delegate 

to Virginia, 133. 
Justice, on frontier, 61, 223, 225, 



KANAWHA County (W. Va.), 
Boone in, 210-222. 

Kansas, Boone in, 229. 

Kaskaskia (111.), won by Clark, 159, 
190. 

Keith, Sir William, governor of 
Pennsylvania, 87. 

Kennedy, John, Kentucky pioneer, 
117. 

Kenton, Simon, scout, 125 ; in Rev- 
olutionary War, 141, 160, 189. 

Kentucky, described, 82, 131. 132 ; 
debatable land between tribes, 
76, 77 ; early explorations, vii, 
85-87, 89-91 ; Virginia hunters, 
20; Finley, 22, 23, 71, 87, 88; 
Boone's early explorations, 24, 
64, 68-70, 88, 89, 101 ; Boone's long 
hunt, 72-84, 86, 94-97; Long Hunt- 
ers in, 91-95 ; Washington, 88, 
89 ; Cutbirth, 66, 67 ; Boone fam- 



Index 



KIN 
ily, 25, 43, 241 ; game abundant, 
98, 129, 218 ; Cherokee lands 
settled, 99 ; early colonial proj- 
ects, 100 ; Transylvania Com- 
pany, 113-176 ; first settled, vii, 
viii ; rush of settlers, 104, 178, 
195-198, 207 ; in Dunmore's War, 
106, 107, 113 ; during Revolution- 
ary War, 132-192 ; losses in In- 
dian wars, 205 ; Indians finally 
quelled, 213-218 ; established as 
Virginia County, 123, 133, 134; 
divided into three counties, 179- 
181 ; made a district, 195 ; be- 
comes a State, 205 ; sends Boone 
to legislature, 182, 183 ; separatist 
agitation, 202-205 ; first wedding, 
143 ; first artillery, 174 ; hard 
winter, 173, 175, 176 ; early com- 
merce, 196, 197 ; Boone pays 
debts, 229 ; Boone's services to, 
200, 201 ; petitions Congress for 
Boone, 176, 177, 228 ; obtains 
Boone's remains, ix, 240 ; de- 
clines to buy Harding's portrait, 
238 ; Filson's History, 199. 

King, John, Kentucky pioneer, 
117. 

— , John L., owns Boone portrait, 
239. 

— , William H., owns Boone por- 
trait, 237-239 ; aid acknowledged, 
xi. 

King Philip, Indian hero, 51, 52. 

Kinkead, Sergt. John, in Dun- 
more's War, 109. 

LACKEY, W. G., aid acknowl- 
edged, xi. 
La Fayette, Gen. Marquis de, in 

Virginia, 182. 
Land grants, to French and Indian 
War veterans, 88, 121, 131 ; by 
Iroquois to whites, 114 ; by Cher- 
okees to whites, 113-116 ; Boone 
from Virginia, 177 ; Boone from 



LYT 

Spain, 222, 227, 228. See also 

Transylvania Company. 
La Salle, Robert Cavelier, sieur de, 

on Western waters, 86. 
Law, on frontier, 33, 34, 224-227. 
Lederer, John, on Western waters, 

86. 
Lee, William, Kentucky pioneer, 

121, 137. 
Lewis, Gen. Andrew, in Dunmore's 

War, 107, 110, 111. 

— family, Kentucky pioneers. 125. 
Lexington (Ky.,), seat of Fayette 

County, 179, 193 ; in Revolution- 
ary War, 186-188. 

Limestone. See Maysville. 

Lincoln, Abraham, Kentucky pio- 
neer, 174. 

— County (Ky.), organized, 179- 
181 ; in Revolutionary War, 188. 

Linn, Lieutenant, marries, 143. 

Linnville Creek, Boones on, 16. 

Logan, Benjamin, arrives in Ken- 
tucky, 125 ; raids Indians, vii, 
134, 207 ; in Revolutionary War, 
138, 144, 164, 165, 180, 181, 189; 
character of services, 241. 

Logan, Chief John, attacks whites, 
105. 

Long Hunters, in Kentucky, 91- 
95. 

Long Island, of Holston, 50. 

Long Knives, use of term, 11, 144. 

Louisiana, North Carolinians in, 
66 ; French, 19 ; owned by Spain, 
220 ; French intrigue against, 
204 ; ceded to United States, 224, 
226-228. 

Louisville (Ky.), Gist at site of, 87 ; 
Finley, 22, 23, 71 ; Washington, 
104 ; Clark, 159 ; Boone, 83, 129, 
193 ; in Revolutionary War, 181, 
190 ; seat of Jefferson County, 
179 ; early growth, 196. 

Lyttleton, William Henry, gov- 
ernor of South Carolina, 43, 55. 



251 



Daniel Boone 



MAC 

McAFEE family, Kentucky 
pioneers, 125. 

McClellan, Alexander, Kentucky 
pioneer, 125. 

McCulloch, John, explores Ken- 
tucky, 91. 

MacDowell family, Kentucky pio- 
neers, 125. 

McGary, Maj. Hugh, in Revolu- 
tionary War, 138, 188, 189. 

McKee, Capt. Alexander, raids 
Kentucky, 186. 

Marquette, Father Jacques, dis- 
covers Mississippi, 86. 

Marshall. Col. Thomas, surveyor, 
181, 192, 193, 195. 

Martin, Josiah, governor of North 
Carolina, 116. 

Maryland, Boones in, 43, 59 ; in- 
crease of settlement, 97 ; com- 
merce with Kentucky, 202. 

Matthews, Albert, on " Long 
Knives," 111. 

Maugridge, Mary, marries George 
Boone 1 , 1. 

Mausker, Caspar, of Long Hunters, 
94. 

Maysville (Ky.), 194 ; in Revolu- 
tionary War, 138 ; Boone at, 201, 
202, 207-210, 212. 

Medicine, on frontier, 32. 

Mill, John Stuart, on forcing civi- 
lization, 51. 

Miller, William, Kentucky pioneer, 
117. 

Mingo Indians, in Dunmore's War, 
105 ; in Revolutionary War, 132, 
139-144, 156, 157, 161-167. 

Mingo Junction (Ohio), Logan 
tragedy near, 105. 

Missouri, Boone family in, viii, 43, 
220-241 ; life previous to cession, 
223-226 ; first stone house, 239 ; 
Constitutional Convention, viii, 
239 ; releases Boone's remains, 
240. 



NOR 
Moccasin Gap, followed by Boone, 

73. 
Monocacy Valley, Boone in, 10. 
Montgomery, Alexander, scout, 

160. 
— , Col. John, raids Cherokees, 44- 

46, 55. 
Mooney, James, accompanies 

Boone, 72-79. 
Moore, Sergeant, in Dunmore's 

War, 108. 
— , William, Kentucky pioneer, 117. 
Moravian Indian missions, 7, 8. 
Morgan, John, grandfather of 

Daniel Boone, 5. 
— , Sarah, marries Squire Boone 1 , 

5, 59 ; life in Oley, 5-15. 
— family, Welsh settlers, 5. 
Morton, Mrs. Jennie C, aid ac- 
knowledged, x. 
Muskrats, 18. 

~^TALL, James, Kentucky pio- 

-^ neer, 117. 

Nashville (Tenn.), hard winter at, 
175. 

Neely, Alexander, joins Boone, 
78-81. 

Neversink Mountains, Boone in, 10. 

New France, fall of, 48, 60, 87, 98. 
See also French. 

New Mexico, New Englanders in, 
86. 

New Orleans, French at, 19 ; Span- 
ish, 228 ; North Carolinians, 66, 
67 ; Virginians, 90, 91 ; early 
commerce with, 197. 

New York (State), Indian upris- 
ing, 37 ; sends emigrants to Ken- 
tucky, 178. 

North Carolina, pioneers of, 13-15 ; 
sends colony to Louisiana, 66 ; 
Boones in, viii, 17-102, 241 ; in 
French and Indian War, 21-23, 
48-50, 56 ; interest in Western 
settlement, 100, 138, 178 ; Hen- 



252 



Index 



NOR 
derson's colony, 113-176 ; opposi- 
tion to Henderson, 116, 123, 127 ; 
regulators, 61, 62 ; rapid settle- 
ment, 42. 

North Wales (Pa.), Boones in, 4, 5. 

Northwest Territory, organized, 
207. 

OHIO, Shawnese in, 135, 144, 
149-160, 170, 182, 190 ; Boone 

hunts in, 211, 218. 
— Company, founded, 20 ; opera- 
tions of, 24 ; land grants on Ohio 

River, 87. 
Oley township (Pa.), Boones in, 4- 

15. 
Opecancano, Indian hero, 52. 
Orange County (Va.), settlers hunt 

in Kentucky, 89, 90. 
Ordinance of 1787, 205. 
Osage Indians, mentioned by 

Boone, 232. 
Otter Creek, Boone on, 117. 
Otters, 18, 74. 

Owatin Creek (Pa.), Boones on, 6. 
Ozark Mountains, Virginians in, 

91. 

TDAINT Lick Town. See Chilli- 

•*- cothe, Little. 

Panthers, 18. 

Paris (Ky.), fort on site of, 137. 

Patterson, Col. Robert, Kentucky 
pioneer, 125, 194. 

Peeke, James, Kentucky pioneer, 
117. 

Penn, William, founds Pennsylva- 
nia, 2. 

Pennington (Peninton), Hannah, 
mentioned by Boone, 234. 

Pennsylvania, founded by Penn, 
2 ; Boones in, viii, 2-14, 102, 174, 
183, 211, 212 ; Finley, 79 ; sends 
settlers to southwest, 13-15, 20, 
24 ; interest in Western settle- 
ment, 138, 178 ; increase of settle- 



REG 
ment, 97, 130 ; in French and In- 
dian War, 20-23, 37 ; iu Revo- 
lutionary War, 148, 159 ; losses 
in Indian wars, 205. 

Pensacola (Fla.), Boone in, 65. 

Philadelphia, in time of Boones, 3, 
4, 10, 102, 212. 

Pickaway, Shawnese town, 179. 

Pittsburg, French at, 20, 21, 41 ; 
Virginia hunters, 89 ; in Dun- 
more's War, 105, 107 ; in Revo- 
lutionary War, 138, 148, 183. 

Poage, Sergt. W., in Dunmore's 
War, 108. 

Point Pleasant (W. Va.), battle at, 
108, 110-112 ; Boone, 201, 210-222. 

Pompey, negro interpreter, 151, 
161. 

Pontiac, Indian hero, 52, 59, 60. 

Pope, Col. William, militia leader, 
180, 181. 

Presbyterians, among frontiers- 
men, 33 

Preston, Col. William, in Dun- 
more's War, 105, 109 ; in Revo- 
lutionary War, 136. 

— family, Kentucky pioneers, 125. 
Prestonburg (Ky.), Boone near, 69, 

70. 

QUAKERS, Boones of this per- 
suasion, 1, 2, 4-7, 10-12 ; ex- 
pel Boones, 12 ; familiar with 
Indians, 13 ; among frontiers- 
men, 14, 33. 

"OANCK, George W., Boones- 

-^~* J borough, x. 

— , Mrs. George W., aid acknowl- 
edged, x. 

Randolph, Nathaniel, Kentucky 
pioneer, 125. 

Reading (Pa.), Boones near, 6. 

Red Jacket, Indian hero. 52. 

— Stone. See Brownsville, Pa. 
Regulators, in Carolinas, 61, 101. 



253 



Daniel Boone 



REL 

Religion, on frontier, 33. See also 
the several denominations. 

Revolutionary War, 175 ; effect on 
proprietary governments, 123 ; 
causes Washington to turn from 
West, 89 ; checks Western col- 
onies, 100 ; Western interest in, 
128, 170, 171 ; G. R. Clark, 125, 
138, 139, 158, 159, 169 ; Kentucky 
in, 132-192. 

Richmond (Va.), seat of govern- 
ment, 181, 182, 207, 208, 215. 

Ringe, Daniel, 234. 

River Alleghany, French on, 20. 

— Big Sandy, Boone on, 69-71, 211 ; 
Washington, 88. 

— Catawba, early settlements on, 
17 ; Indian hostilities, 42. 

— Clinch, Boone on, 69, 101, 103- 
112 ; early settlement, 97. 

— Cumberland, Long Hunters on, 
93, 95 ; Boone, 101 ; in Transyl- 
vania cession, 115 ; in Revolu- 
tionary War, 139. 

— Dick's, Boone on, 83. 

— Elk, Boone on, 221. 

— Elkhorn, Boone on, 208 ; in Rev- 
olutionary War, 137. 

— French Broad, early settlement 
on, 97. 

— Gauley, Boone on, 219. 

— Green, Long Hunters on, 93, 94 ; 
Boone, 77. 

— Great Miami, Shawnese on, 179. 

— Holston, Finley on, 79 ; Boone, 
57, 69, 73 ; Long Hunters, 91 ; in 
Cherokee War, 47, 50 ; in Revo- 
lutionary War, 134, 138, 144, 161 ; 
early settlements, 97, 126. 

— Hudson, Iroquois on, 99. 

— Kanawha (Great Kanawha), ex- 
plored. 86 : in Dunmore's War, 
108; Boone on, viii, 210-222; 
hunting:, 218, 219. 

— Kentucky, Boone on, 73, 79, 83, 
112, 180,211 ; Transylvania settle- 



RIV 
ment, 115-119, 121 ; crown lands 
abutting, 121, 130 ; capture of 
girls, 134-136 ; in Revolutionary 
War, 137, 139, 176 ; bounds Fay- 
ette County, 179 ; Boone leaves, 
201. 
River Keowee, Cherokees on, 45. 

— Licking, Shawnese on, 135, 137, 
151, 166, 170, 178-180, 188, 190; 
Boone, 83, 208, 211. 

— Little Miami, Shawnese on, 151, 
190 ; in Revolutionary War, 160, 
170. 

— Little Sandy, Washington on, 88. 

— Little Tennessee, Cherokees on, 
45, 48, 49. 

— Maumee, Wayne on, 217. 

— Miami, Indians raided on, 214. 

— Mississippi, Iroquois on, 99 ; 
French, 19, 60, 85-87, 207 ; early 
English explorations, 20, 85-87, 
89-91 ; North Carolinians, 66, 67 ; 
in Revolutionary War, 179; Span- 
ish, 85, 197, 198, 202-205; free 
navigation sought by West, 203- 
205, 226 ; early commerce on, 
197, 198. 

— Missouri, Boone on, 221, 232, 234, 
240. 

— Monongahela, fur trade route, 
24 ; Braddock on, 71 ; early set- 
tlements, 98, 130; Boone, 212, 
215, 216. 

— New, Batts on, 86 ; Squire Boone, 
78 ; settlers explore Kentucky, 
90, 91. 

— Nolichucky, early settlement on, 
97. 

— Ohio, drainsVirginia, 16; French 
on, 19, 20, 41,42; early explora- 
tions. 22 ; Virginia hunters, 89- 
91 ; Gist, 87 ; Finley, 22, 23, 71 ; 
in Dunmore's War, 105 ; Iroquois 
land sale, 99 ; Boone on, 69, 70, 
83, 183, 201, 202, 210, 222 ; in Tran- 
sylvania cession, 114, 129 ; in 



254 



Index 



RIV 
Revolutionary War, 138, 151, 159, 
170 ; Indian wars on, 88, 107, 
108 ; early settlements, 98, 100, 
104, 207, 214 ; highway for emi- 
grants, 130, 172, 178, 184, 196, 201 ; 
early commerce, 197, 198 ; last of 
Indian raids, 213-218. 
River Platte, Boone on, 232. 

— Potomac, fur trade route, 24. 

— Powell, Boone on, 73, 95, 96, 125 ; 
early settlements, 97, 102, 115,119. 

— Red, Boone on, 79. 

— Rich, in Dunmore's War, 109. 

— Rockcastle, Indians on, 80, 117. 

— St. Joseph, Indians raided on, 
213. 

— St. Lawrence, Indians on, 19. 

— Salt, Indians near, 190. 
, Beech Fork of, 208. 

— Sandy, West Fork of, Boone 
on, 70. 

— Savannah, Indians on, 37. 

— Schuylkill, Boones on, 6-15. 

— Scioto, Shawnese on, 157, 158, 
160, 167, 207 ; Indians raided, 213. 

— Shenandoah, Boones on, 16. 

— Tennessee, Indian uprising, 37, 
45 ; Iroquois land sale, 99, 114 ; 
in Transylvania cession, 114. 

— Wabash, Shawnese on, 206, 207 ; 
French, 207; English, 87; in 
Dunmore's War, 105 ; Indians 
raided on, 213, 214. 

— Watauga, Boone on, 55, 56, 
101, 115 ; Cherokee council, 115, 
116, 133 ; early settlement, 97. 

— Yadkin, early known to Penn- 
sylvanians, 14 ; Bryan family on, 
25-27, 43 ; Boone family, 16-20, 
24-27, 34, 43, 55-57, 68-70, 81, 89, 
95, 96, 100, 102, 103, 125, 158, 168, 
169, 208, 209 ; Indians on, 18, 19, 
22, 37-56, 59, 60 ; hunting, 17, 18, 
28-34, 55, 58 ; trading caravans, 
31, 58 ; crime, 60-62 ; Finley's ar- 
rival, 71, 72. 



SEA 

River Yellowstone, Boone on, 
229. 

Robinson, Chief Justice, on Wil- 
derness Road, 172, 173, 175. 

— , David, militia leader, 134. 

Rockingham County (Va.), Boones 
in, 16 ; Lincolns, 174. 

Rocky Mountains, explorations of, 
231, 232. 

Rowan County (N. C), Boones in, 
25, 55, 174. 

Russell, Henry, killed by Indians, 
103. 

— , Col. William, starts for Ken- 
tucky, 101-103 ; in Dunmore's 
War, 105, 108 ; in Revolutionary 
War, 134. 

ST. ASAPH (Ky.), founded, 121. 
St. Augustine (Fla.), Boone in, 
65. 

St. Charles County (Mo.), Boones 
in, 220-241. 

St. Clair, Gov. Arthur, raids In- 
dians, 214, 215, 217. 

St. Louis, Spanish seat, 220, 221, 
223 ; fur market, 229 ; Harding 
at, 237 ; Gazette, 239, 240. 

Salisbury (N. C), Boone near, 18, 
62. 

Sailing, Peter, in Kentucky, 87. 

Salt Licks, in Kentucky, 90,92, 118, 
146, 151 ; near Prestonburg, 69, 
70 ; Big, 82, 117 ; Big Bone, 82, 
83, 87 ; Blue, 82, 158, 166, 188, 189, 
194 ; Buffalo, 17 ; French, 101 ; 
Grassy, 181 ; Knob, 92 ; Lower 
Blue, 135, 147-151, 160. 

Scotch-Irish, among frontiersmen, 
5, 14, 22, 66, 128, 196. 

Scott, Gen. Charles, raids Indians, 
214. 

Searcy, Bartlet, Kentucky pioneer, 
117. 

— , Reuben, Kentucky pioneer, 
117. 



255 



Daniel Boone 



SHA 

Shawnese Indians, raid Southern 
tribes, 19 ; in Kentucky, 23 ; in 
Dunmore's War, 104, 105, 107, 108, 
110-113 ; capture Boone, 77, 78, 
146-158 ; capture girls, 134-136 ; 
attack Boone, 103 ; in Revolu- 
tionary War, 132, 139-144, 156, 
157, 160-167, 170, 179, 180, 183-191, 
193 ; raided by Kentuckians, 206, 
207. 

Sheltowee (Big Turtle), Boone's 
Indian name, 152. 

Silouee, Cherokee chief, 45. 

Sitting Bull, Indian hero, 52. 

Skaggs, Henry, heads Long Hunt- 
ers, 92. 

Slavery, among Indians, 42 ; negro, 
33, 103, 184. 

Smith, John, on Indian warfare, 
111. 

South Carolina, pioneers of, 13-15 ; 
in Cherokee War, 43, 44, 48 ; reg- 
ulators, 61 ; interest in Western 
settlement, 138, 178. 

Southern Indians, attack whites, 
60, 202, 204. See also Cherokee 
Indians. 

Spanish, extent of explorations, 
85 ; control Mississippi River, 
202-205 ; relations with Ken- 
tuckians, 197, 198, 202-205 ; entice 
American colonists, 204, 205, 220, 
222. 

Sports, of pioneers, 32, 33. 

Station Camp Creek, Boone on, 73- 
79. 

Staunton (Va.), Boone at, 183. 

Stephen, Col. Adam, raids Chero- 
kees, 50. 

Stockfield, owned by Boone, 208. 

Stone, Uriah, in Kentucky, 90- 
92. 

Stone Mountain, crossed by Boone, 
73. 

Stoner, Michael, Kentucky pio- 
neer, 117. 



TUR 

Stuart, John, early exploration of 
Kentucky, 66, 67 ; accompanies 
Boone, 72-80 ; death, 80. 

Sugar Tree Creek, Boones on, 27, 
68. 

Surveying, on frontier, 88, 104, 107, 
119-121, 127, 131, 171, 172, 181, 192, 
193, 198, 200, 208, 209, 211, 212. 

Sycamore Shoals, treaty at, 115, 
116. 

rpARLETON, Col. Banastre, cap- 
■*- tures Boone, 182. 

Tate, Samuel, Kentucky pioneer, 
117. 

Taylor, Hancock, hunts in Ken- 
tucky, 89, 90. 

— , Richard, hunts in Kentucky, 
89, 90. 

Tecumseh, Indian hero, 52. 

Tennessee, Virginia hunters in, 20, 
91 ; Boone, 55-57 ; Cherokee 
lands settled, 99 ; attacked by 
Southern Indians, 202, 204. 

Terre Haute (Ind.), Virginians at, 
91. 

Teugue Creek, Boone buried on, 
240. 

Thoreau, Henry David, likened to 
Boone, 10. 

Todd, Capt. John, Kentucky pio- 
neer, 125, 131 ; militia leader, 134, 

180 ; killed by Indians, 188, 189. 
Towns, Oswell, Kentucky pioneer, 

117. 
Transylvania Company, settles 

Kentucky. 113-176, 208 ; nullified 

by Virginia, 134, 176. 
Trigg, Col. Stephen, militia leader, 

181 ; killed by Indians, 188, 189. 
Tryon, Gov. William, conflict with 

regulators, 101 ; runs boundary 

line, 69. 
Turkeys, 18, 72. 76, 92, 133. 
Turtle Creek, Braddock's defeat 

on, 21. 

56 



Index 



TWI 

Twitty, Capt. William, Kentucky- 
pioneer, 117. 

VARDEMAN, John, Kentucky 
pioneer, 117. 

Vincennes (Ind.), won by Clark, 
159, 169, 190. 

Virginia, early Indian hostilities, 
111 ; early explorations from, 
85-87, 89-91 ; pioneer advance 
through, 13-15, 20 ; Boones in, 
16, 43, 57 ; path to Kentucky, 115 ; 
in French and Indian War, 20- 
23, 37, 41, 47-49 ; in Dunmore's 
War, 105-112 ; losses in Indian 
wars, 205 ; sends settlers to Ken- 
tucky, 178, 192 ; opposition to 
Henderson, 116, 123, 127, 130, 133, 
134, 176 ; interest in Western 
settlement, 138 ; regulators, 61 ; 
organizes Kentucky County, 123, 
133, 134, 174 ; in Revolutionary 
War, 148, 169, 171, 203 ; aids Ken- 
tucky, 138, 139, 143, 146, 150, 159, 
165, 172, 174, 190, 207, 208 ; erects 
district of Kentucky, 195 ; Boone 
in Assembly, 182, 183, 215 ; grants 
land to Boone, 177 ; fails to re- 
lease Kentucky, 204. 

— , Valley of, its pioneers, 13-16, 
19, 20, 24, 31, 35, 100, 102. 

WADDELL, Capt. Hugh, in 
French and Indian War, 21 ; 

in Cherokee War, 44, 45, 49, 50, 

55, 56. 
Walker, Felix, Kentucky pioneer, 

117, 118. 
— , Dr. Thomas, in Kentucky, 87. 
War of 1812-15, effect on Missouri, 

230. 
Ward, John, explores Kentucky, 



ZIN 

Warriors' paths, 73, 76, 79, 180. 

Washington, George, in French 
and Iudian War, 20, 21 ; in Ken- 
tucky, 87-89, 100, 104 ; in Revolu- 
tionary War, 138. 

Wayne, Gen. Anthony, conquers 
Indians, 217, 218. 

Welch, Rev. James E., describes 
Boone, 236, 237. 

Welsh, among frontiersmen, 4, 
5. 

West Virginia, pioneer advance 
through, 13-15 ; Boone in, 210- 
222, 235. 

Whitley, William, arrives in Ken* 
tucky, 125. 

Wilcoxen, Elizabeth, marries Ben- 
jamin Cutbirth, 66. 

Wildcats, 18. 

Wilderness Road, 130, 146, 172-174, 
178, 184, 198, 202. See also Cum- 
berland Gap. 

Wilkes County (N. C), Boone in, 
68. 

Wilkesboro (N. C), Boone near, 
68. 

Wilkinson, Gen. James, raids In- 
dians, 214. 

Wisconsin State Historical Society, 
possesses Boone's records, ix, x, 
208. 

Wolves, 18. 

Wood, Col. Abraham, on Western 
waters, 86. 

Wyandot Indians, in Revolution- 
ary War, 184. 



"TAENIA (O.), Boone near, 151, 
-A- 152. 



ZINZENDORF und Pottendorf, 
Nikolaus Ludwig, Count von, 
Moravian missionary, 7, 8. 



18 



(l) 



257 



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Richly illustrated with 350 Drawings, 75 Maps, etc. 
Square 8vo. Cloth, $2.50. 

Bancroft's History of the United States, 

From the Discovery of the Continent to the Establish- 
ment of the Constitution in 1789. (Also Edition de Luxe, 
on large paper, limited to one hundred sets, numbered.) 
Complete in six volumes, with a Portrait of the Author. 
8vo. Cloth, uncut, gilt top, $15.00 ; half calf or half 
morocco, $27.00 ; tree calf, $50.00. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



GREAT COMMANDERS. 
Edited by General JAMES GRANT WILSON. 

This series forms one of the most notable collections of books that has 
been published for many years. The success it has met with since the first 
volume was issued, and the widespread attention it has attracted, indicate 
that it has satisfactorily fulfilled its purpose, viz., to provide in a popular 
form and moderate compass the records of the lives of men who have been 
conspicuously eminent in the great conflicts that established American in- 
dependence and maintained our national integrity and unity. Each biog- 
raphy has been written by an author especially well qualified for the task, 
and the result is not only a series of fascinating stories of the lives and deeds 
of great men, but a rich mine of valuable information for the student of 
American history and biography. 

Each, J2mo> cloth, gilt top, $1.50 net 

Postage, \\ cents additional. 

NOW READY. 

Admiral Farragut - - - - By Captain A. T. Mahan, U. S. N. 

General Taylor By General O. O. Howard, U. S. A. 

General Jackson By James Parton. 

General Greene By General Francis V. Greene. 

General J. E. Johnston - - By Robert M. Hughes, of Virginia. 

General Thomas By Henry Coppee, LL. D. 

General Scott By General Marcus J. Wright. 

General Washington - - - By General Bradley T. Johnson. 

General Lee By General Fitzhugh Lee. 

General Hancock By General Francis A. Walker. 

General Sheridan By General Henry E. Davies. 

General Grant By General James Grant Wilson. 

General Sherman By General Manning F. Force. 

Commodore Paul Jones - - - - By Cyrus Townsend Brady. 

General Meade By Isaac R. Pennypacker. 

General McClellan By General Peter S. Michie. 

General Forrest By Captain J. HARVEY Mathes. 

IN PREPARATION. 

Admiral Porter By James R. Solev, late Ass't SeCy U.S. Navy. 

General Schoneld - - An Autobiography. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 

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